| We first photographed a Forest Owlet in Melghat Forest, Maharashtra in November 2001. While in the area again the following year the question was raised by Navendu Laad as to whether the bird he had photographed on the second day was the same one he had photographed the previous day. As we were used to identifying tigers on the basis of facial markings, it was quite easy for us to use the breast markings of Forest Owlets to distinguish them. This observation was published in some leading magazines in 2004.
The number of Forest Owlets may now come quite close a hundred in the Melghat area and adjoining areas of Madhya Pradesh. This is mainly due to the "no action no programme" advocated by the Bombay Natural History Society: As the bird could survive unnoticed for more than a hundred years, let it look after itself. So far this has worked well.
This March I was again in the area. On the 27th we could see and photograph three birds. On the 28th we heard four birds and photographed two of them. In all, we had photos of five birds. While comparing breast markings we could not clearly see the markings of the third bird. I had to use the wing markings. To my surprise I found the wing markings in the first and third birds to be the same. This reduced the number of birds photographed to four. We also discovered that wing markings are much easier to record. Comparison of the wing markings increased the number of birds photographed to five again.
It is easy to identify individual Forest Owlets by their wing markings. - PML | 
