A small brown owl with yellow eyes and feathered ear tufts. Note square head shape when tufts are not raised. Body all brown with extensive scattered darker and paler markings. Juvenile is heavily barred on the back and crown. Endemic to the Banggai islands off the east coast of Sulawesi; known specifically from Peleng and Labobo. Inhabits understory of forest and forest edge from lowlands to lower mountains. Distinctive: the only scops-owl in range. Song is a short, low trill, quite different from the clipped whistle of Sulawesi Scops-Owl, which it was once regarded as a subspecies of.