• Stand about 9½ inches (23 cm) tall
• Weigh about 150 grams (about as much as a half can of pop)
• Brown feathers with white spots
• No ear tufts
• Bright yellow eyes
• Long, featherless legs
• Adults have speckled chests (males and females are almost identical in appearance), chicks have solid, buffy-coloured chests
• Found on the ground (not in trees)
• Nest underground (if you can see the eggs, it's not a burrowing owl nest!)
• Closely associated with ground squirrel, badger and prairie dog burrows

Vocalizations

Usually quiet, although they do have several vocalizations:

• mainly during the spring (when calling for mates) they'll give a "coo-coo" call
• when disturbed, adults give loud, aggressive alarm calls
• when chicks are disturbed in the nest they have an alarm call that sounds like a rattlesnake!