The brown fish owl (Ketupa zeylonensis) hunts day and night by watching for prey from a perch overlooking water. It will often fly up and down, sometimes almost skimming the water and scooping up fish from near the surface. Sometimes it will hunt on foot, wading into the shallows, but is more likely to bathe in the shallows, ruffling its feathers before drying and carefully preening the plumage. It has large, powerful, and curved talons and a sharp keel sitting under the middle claw with all having sharp cutting edges that are very much like those of eagle owls. An all-year resident throughout most tropical and subtropical parts of the Indian Subcontinent to Southeast Asia and adjoining regions, it lives close to water in a wide variety of habitats from deciduous, and semi-deciduous forests, to woodlands, ravines, and even tree plantations and groves. There are five known subspecies of Brown Fish-owl.
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