A small owl with gray-brown plumage marked by white spots. It is active at night and hunts insects and small vertebrates.
It is small and stocky, with white spots on gray-brown upperparts and brown streaks on whitish underparts. The sexes look alike.
It is nocturnal but may sometimes be seen by day. It hunts insects and small vertebrates and nests in holes in trees or buildings.
Some regional forms from dry areas are paler, so the plumage should not be described as equally dark in all birds.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.