Boreal Owl

About the Boreal Owl

The boreal owl or Tengmalm's owl (Aegolius funereus) is a small owl in the "true owl" family Strigidae. It is known as the boreal owl or, more rarely, Richardson's owl after Sir John Richardson, in North America, and as Tengmalm's owl in Europe and Asia, after the Swedish naturalist Peter Gustaf Tengmalm.

Due to its nocturnal habits and preferred inaccessible taiga forest habitat, it is rarely seen by humans; when met with, it is often extremely confident, showing little or no fear of people, only flying off if approached to within 3–5 metres.

The boreal owl was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. Linnaeus placed it with all the other owls in the genus Strix and coined the binomial name Strix funerea. The boreal owl is now placed in the genus Aegolius that was introduced in 1829 by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup with Strix tengmalmi J. F. Gmelin, 1788 (a synonym of A. f. funereus) as the type species.

Currently, seven subspecies are accepted, though there is no genetic basis for more than two subspecies, one (A. f. funereus, Tengmalm's owl) in the Old World, and one... Wikipedia →