The back, wings, and tail are mottled and barred with dark brown, with the ground color yellowish buff, tawny brown, or even, in the northernmost populations, pure white. The throat is white, and the remaining underparts are barred with black and white, the width of the dark bars also varying geographically.
Range is widespread from Alaska throughout Canada throughout the Americas.
Habitat is varied from subarctic coniferous forests to arid deserts and wooded city parks, nesting in trees, in caves, on cliff ledges, or on the ground. The large eyes of owls are directed forward, and are encased in a capsule of bone, the sclerotic ring, that allows little eye movement. Owls must turn their entire heads to look sideways, facilitated by relatively long and flexible necks that permit the head to be rotated through 270 degrees. In most owls the eyes are surrounded by a facial disk of stiff feathers. As relatively few owls hunt their prey in full daylight, their hearing is particularly important.