Southern boobook pale spots. It has grey-green or yellow-green eyes. It is generally nocturnal, though is sometimes active at dawn and dusk, retiring to roost in secluded spots in the foliage of trees. The southern boobook feeds on insects and small vertebrates, hunting by pouncing on them from tree perches. Breeding takes place from late winter to early summer, using tree hollows as nesting sites. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed the southern boobook as being of least concern on account of its large range and apparently stable population. English ornithologist John Latham described the boobook owl as "Strix
Southern boobook boobook" in 1801, writing about it in English, before giving it its scientific name, taking its species epithet from a local Dharug word for the bird. The species description was based on a painting by Thomas Watling of a bird—the holotype—in the Sydney district in the 1790s. John Gould described "Athene marmorata" in 1846 from a specimen in South Australia; this is regarded as a synonym. German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup classified the two taxa into subgenus "Spiloglaux" of a new genus "Ieraglaux" in 1852, renaming "S. boobook" to "Ieraglaux (Spiloglaux) bubuk". In his 1865 "Handbook to the Birds of