Hello and welcome. This is the Science of Birds. I am your host, Ivan Philipson.

The Science of Birds podcast is a lighthearted exploration of bird biology for lifelong learners.

And hey, guess what? It's Random Bird Thursday.

Random Bird Thursday episodes are relatively short and sweet.

In these episodes, I spotlight a bird species that probably won't get featured in one of my full-length episodes,

because there are over 11,000 bird species in the world.

And we want to celebrate all of them, but time is limited, so random bird Thursday gives us a chance to celebrate a species that we might otherwise overlook.

Now, if this episode sounds a little different, that's because I'm recording it in a hotel room in Romania.

I'm on the 14th floor right now, looking out over the Black Sea. This is my first time in Romania. I'm on the 14th floor right now looking out over the Black Sea. This is my first

time in Romania. It's really cool. I am here scouting for a future birding tour. So perhaps

I will make an episode about my experiences here birding in Romania. So stay tuned for that.

But right now we're talking about,

well, who are we talking about? Well, we have to find out by pushing the random bird selector

button. So here we go.

Okay, we have an owl. We have the jungle owlet. Not to be confused with the jungle towelet. That would be something you would use to wipe the sweat off your brow when you're hacking your way through the jungle or the machete. That's a towelet, but we're talking about the jungle owlet, glauquidium radiatum. This is an Asian species found throughout most of India and in the Central Himalayan Mountains. All right, here we go. Let's get into it.

The jungle owllet is a small squat species with a rounded head and it doesn't have any sort of ears, right? It doesn't have any ear tufts. You probably know that when we have

owls with what appear to be ears, like on the great horned owl, those are not actually ears.

They're just tufts of feathers. But the jungle outlet does not have that. When this species is

flying around, it has a swift direct flight, which looks more like a small hawk, like an occipiter, rather than your typical owl.

So when we say small, we mean about 8 to 9 inches from beak to tail, or 20 to 22 centimeters, so pretty small. The plumage on this bird is pretty

jazzy. It's got really dense, fine barring over its entire body. So densely packed black

bars on the back, on the head, on the breast, all over the place. Overall, the bird is grayish brown

...