Tawny Fish Owl

The tawny fish owl is a fish owl 48–61cm long, one of the heaviest living owls; six adults averaged 2,415g (range 2,050–2,650g). Like other fish owls it has large ear tufts that usually hang to the sides of the head and look messy and tousled, and yellow eyes. The scapulars are a dingy yellow forming a contrasting band across the back (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives in subtropical to temperate forests in southern Nepal, northern India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Laos, Myanmar, Taiwan and Vietnam, in the Himalayan foothills from Kashmir and Garhwal east to the mountains of Laos and Vietnam. Unlike most owls, fish owls' feathers are not soft to the touch and lack the comb and hair-like fringes that silence flight, and the rough texture under their toes helps them grasp slippery fish (Wikipedia, general species account).