Also known as the Oriental Barn Owl, it is a small to medium-sized white owl without ear hair. Females are larger than males and weigh 25 grams; spots for females and larvae are usually denser than those of adult males. It has a round face and a pair of fairly small black eyes. The dough plate is white, with sharp edges of khaki and black, and the beak is white or light character. The upper limbs have mottled patterns of grey, light yellow, light yellow and pale gold, and the head is the palest and the wings are the most abundant. The flight feathers and tail feathers are faintly tucked in a dark gray on the light yellow-brown or pale gold ground. The lower part of the pure white has sparse dark spots. The slender white legs have sparse feathers that grow above the "ankle" and have light gray-brown toes and dark gray-brown claws. Juveniles have almost no feathers that differ from adults from their nests, but have heavier spots on their breasts. It looks white in flight, with long wings and a large head and a short tail.
A call is made with a long, hissing scream, sk-air or skee-air at a uniform pitch for one to two seconds.
Food and Hunting This is a small mammal specialized hunter, and the house mouse Must musculus often forms a staple food. Other prey includes rats, young rabbits, bats, frogs, lizards, birds and insects. The vast majority of prey is caught on the ground, but it also catches birds and bats in flight.
Status and distribution It is a widespread and fairly common owl in Australia, but rare in Tasmania. It also occurs on many islands in Indonesia and New Guinea, the Philippines and the western Pacific, but its place on these islands is uncertain. The nominated cooked race has been introduced in New Zealand; an attempt at Lord Howe Island has not been successful.
Tula and offshore islands in Australia, as well as the Lesser Sandas and Solomon Islands; Meeki in Papua New Guinea, and the islands of Manam and Karkar (Dampier), which are more yellow-orange than Nomi-Nate; sumbaensis on Sumba Island in Indonesia, with a bright cinnamon orange on the back, has a white tail with narrow dark stripes on its tail; and T.D. Santa Cruz Island, The lower parts of Banks Island and internosita in Vanuatu were washed orange ochre.
Its natural habitats are open countryside, farmland, suburbs, cities, open woodlands, wilderness and moorlands, and even on rocky offshore islands.