A forest owl of North America, with brown-and-white barred plumage. Its calls may reveal it at night.
It has a brown face and brown-and-white barred plumage.
Barred Owls and Northern Spotted Owls overlap in western Oregon. Researchers combined owl tracking with lidar measurements of forest structure. The records included 38 Barred Owls and 41 Spotted Owls. Both species selected tall-canopy areas more often than low-canopy areas, showing that vertical forest structure is part of their habitat selection.
Spotted Owls were more often associated with lower tree cover, developed understory and steeper slopes. The authors discuss resource partitioning and niche compression or displacement related to competition as possible explanations for the observed differences in habitat use.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
In western Oregon, forest use by both owl species was associated with canopy height, understory and slope. Recording vertical structure as well as tree cover can help describe the habitat features used by forest owls.