Northern Boobook (Ninox japonica) [XC469753]
by Rolf A. de By from Kunigami, Okinawa, Japan (song)
Northern Boobook (Ninox japonica) [XC285887]
by Peter Boesman from Tairo-Ike, Miyakejima, Japan (song)
Subspecies
Ninox scutulata (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) was split into Brown Hawk-Owl (Ninox scutulata), Chocolate Boobook (Ninox randi) and Northern Boobook (Ninox japonica) by King (2002), but this treatment is not adopted by the BirdLife Taxonomic Working Group because although King (2002) provides good evidence of consistent vocal differences in three groups within the Ninox scutulata complex, he also shows there are no clear matching morphological differences.
Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Brown Hawk-Owl (Ninox scutulata).
The following 3 subspecies are recognised:
florensis (Wallace, 1864) - South-eastern Siberia, north-eastern and eastern China and northern Korea.
japonica (Temminck & Schlegel, 1844) - Russian Far East to Korea, Japan; Taiwan.
totogo Momiyama, 1931 - Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan.