From helping them find mates to bettering their ability to camouflage, marks on animals and birds serve various purposes.

As Holt hunts for answers, he remains awed by the strangeness of the bird itself. “There is something about that huge white owl, adapted to arctic environments, that lures me,” says Holt.

HABITAT: Owls need western North American old-growth forests of white pine, Douglas fir, and ponderosa pine that create high, closed canopies, good for nesting. They nest in tree cavities, old bird-of ...

Scapulars have blackish edged white ... morph birds. Where their ranges overlap, the two species are best identified by voice. Common. Range now overlaps that of the western screech owl in eastern ...

These “plumicorns” resemble horns or, to some, catlike ears. Great horned owls are adaptable birds and live from the Arctic to South America. They are at home in suburbia as well as in woods ...