Photos by Sal DeFini

Eastern Screech Owls. Red Morph is Mom, Grey Morph is Dad. Chicks down deep in the nest under mom. Right now it’s sleepy time.

  • aasatru
    4•6 months ago

    That’s amazing! Fascinating that there’s so much variation within the species yet next to none between the genders.

    Thanks for the answer!

    • anon6789OP
      4•6 months ago

      The typical ways to try and ID sex visually is females are generally the larger ones, a bit more aggressive, and will sometimes have a slightly different shade of coloring, but since all of those things have a range of variation, none are very reliable. Nesting is what really gives the only accurate indication other than genetic analysis, since there the gender roles are well established.