Pacific Screech-Owl

How to find it

Listen for the trill at dusk or just before dawn in areas where the owl lives. Carry a flashlight or headlamp for night searches, and binoculars for the view. It often becomes active soon after dark, and you may then see it on low, open branches and fence posts. By day, look for it perched quietly on branches or in tree cavities. A tour company says it is fairly easy to see at day roosts around Caño Negro, and guides also see it at night in many places, sometimes in roost or nest holes.

How to recognise it

This is a medium-sized screech-owl with bright yellow eyes and prominent ear tufts.

The face is pale grey with fine darker lines, edged by a narrow blackish rim. The bill is greenish. Whitish bands show across the shoulder and closed wing. The underparts carry very fine streaking, and the bird is slightly larger than a Vermiculated Screech-Owl.

It has few striking field marks, so range and voice matter as much as plumage. By day the owls perch camouflaged against bark. One observer who visited parts of Costa Rica found red morph birds more common than dark brown ones.

What it sounds like

Recording: Jon Robson, CC BY-SA 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

It is solitary and nocturnal. By day it sleeps in thickets, vine tangles and tree holes, and it is wary and easier to flush by day than other owls.

At night it hunts at forest clearings and edges from low branches or fence posts, dropping onto large insects such as beetles, katydids and moths, and onto scorpions. It nests in tree cavities or old woodpecker holes and lays 3 to 4 eggs, breeding mainly in the dry season. Family groups stay together until the start of the rainy season.

Where it lives

It lives in the interior and edges of deciduous and evergreen forest, savannas with scattered trees, secondary forest and mangroves, and it is less numerous in evergreen forest. Across its range it prefers drier, more open habitat than other screech-owls.

In Costa Rica it is mostly on the Pacific side, in Guanacaste and the warmer, drier western Central Valley. It occurs up to about 1000 m or more and reaches 1,300 m, though it is usually found much lower.

When to see it

It can be found year-round. The owls are more vocal in the breeding season, from February to May.

Similar birds

Costa Rica has four screech-owl types that all look alike: small, stern, brown, grey and white. Tropical Screech-Owl lives in the Central Valley and on the Pacific slope from Jaco south, while the Pacific Screech-Owl is the dry forest bird from Jaco north. Its colour pattern and Pacific-side range help separate it.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Rican names for this owl include Lechucita Sabanera, Ju de León, Estucurú and Sorococa. Estucurú and Sorococa are also used for other Costa Rican screech-owls, and lechuza appears in local natural history accounts too.

Status and conservation

The AOCR lists it as a resident (R), and the IUCN lists it as Least Concern, fairly common to common within its range.

Photography tips

A Costa Rican naturalist films this owl with camera traps in Guanacaste, placed in trees or over dry-season puddles, and a camera over a puddle is the easiest way to film it. For night viewing, binoculars and a flashlight or headlamp are advised. By day, look for owls camouflaged against bark on branches or in tree cavities.