This owl occurs on islands of North Maluku. It has a gray-brown head and reddish-brown upperparts, and uses both lowland rainforest and mature secondary forest with large trees.
The head is gray-brown, the throat white, and the upperparts reddish brown. The underparts have strong reddish-brown and white bars; the dark tail has gray crossbars.
The account records it in lowland tropical rainforest and also in mature secondary forest with large trees.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.