Strix varia

The Barred Owl has an overall length of 16 to 24 inches. It's wingspan is 38 to 50 inches. This is a large, rotund, gray-brown woodland owl with a puffy dome-shaped head and big, liquid black eyes. The most striking feature is a ruff of feathers, barred crosswise, on the puffy upper breast, and bold lengthwise streaks on the rest of the under-parts. The amount of richness of brown in the plumage increases from north to south; the palest birds in east-central Canada, and the darkest in extreme south Mexico.