Beats the hell out of me.
Never seen one. But I'm sure that had I seen a picture of one, it could be demonstrated it came from a large clutch of eggs, all of which hatched, and the one in the picture was breeding as if it needed fore-and-aft peckers so as to not miss a stroke.
And if "they" missed on the spotted owl, by golly, NOTHING is going extinct. After all, look at the spotted owl. How come, just wondering, how come all at once the spotted owl numbers are declining because other critters are killin' 'em. Why now, and not, say, 200 years ago, or 500 years ago?
Personally, I believe the spotted owl is simply yer basic owl which happens to have spots, and isn't a separate species. The spotted owl thing was overdone. A tool to stop logging.
Arf