Our March Bird of the Month, the beautiful Barred Owl, doesn’t visit your bird feeders, but may very well be a resident of your backyard or your neighborhood. The Barred Owl’s hooting call, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” is a classic sound of mature forests and forested swamps. But this attractive owl, with soulful brown eyes and brown-and-white-striped plumage, can also pass completely unnoticed as it flies noiselessly through the dense canopy or snoozes away the day on a tree limb, camouflaged like the furrowed bark of the tree. Originally a bird of the East, during the twentieth century it spread through the Pacific Northwest and southward into California, where it has hybridized with closely related and threatened Spotted Owl species.

Barred Owls are easiest to find when they are active at night—and they’re a lot easier to hear than to see. They are also more likely to be heard during the day than any other owl in our area. Visit forests near water and listen carefully, paying attention for the owl’s “Who cooks for you?” call. Try imitating the call with your own voice and then wait quietly. If you’re lucky, a territorial Barred Owl will call back or even fly in to investigate you. (Try it! It’s happened to us more than once). During the daytime, a quiet walk through the forest might reveal a roosting Barred Owl if you are lucky and observant. If your yard or neighborhood has large trees, you may even find yourself face to face with this large owl if you walk outside at night or you may hear the “duet” of a male and female pair of owls calling back and forth to each other during courtship, generally in late January and February.

Barred Owls nest in cavities in large trees and need mature forest for the nesting opportunities they provide. Barred owls are big birds, standing up to two feet tall, with a wingspan of up to six feet! The only owl in our area that’s larger is the Great Horned Owl. So, they need large cavities to nest. And unlike some birds that create their own nesting cavities or re-purpose cavities of other birds, the Barred Owl uses what cavities nature…or people…provide. They often take up residence in nest boxes in forested areas, or even in yards with tall trees. Consider putting up a nest box to attract a breeding pair. Make sure you put it up well before breeding season, which occurs from late January through April. Barred owls may prospect a nesting site for up to a year before using it, so don’t worry if you don’t attract a nesting pair right away. Barred owls are known to use wood duck nesting boxes, which are large, but the ideal nesting box is even larger. Check out the Barred Owl nesting box in our store and compare its size with other large nesting boxes like Wood Duck or Northern Flicker. Like the owl itself, the box is large, 24 inches tall by 12 inches wide, by 16 inches deep, and it has an entrance hole that’s 6 inches in diameter!

• And later in March, check out Cornell University’s live Barred Owl cam, located inside a nesting box in the backyard of Wild Birds Unlimited founder Jim Carpenter in Indiana. See the owls return and begin nesting, see eggs hatching, and watch the babies grow until they fledge, all from inside the nesting box! Stay tuned for word from us when the camera goes live and connect to it here: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/barred-owls/

Cool Facts about Barred Owls:

• Barred Owls have few enemies. The Great Horned Owl is the most serious predatory threat to the Barred Owl. Although the two species often live in the same areas, a Barred Owl will move to another part of its territory when a Great Horned Owl is nearby.
• Barred Owls have been here a LONG time! Pleistocene fossils of Barred Owls, at least 11,000 years old, have been found throughout eastern North America.
• Barred Owls LOVE (to eat) rodents. Barred owls are opportunistic predators that eat a wide variety of prey, including rodents and other small mammals, including mice and voles, squirrels (!), chipmunks, opossums, and rabbits, helping keep these critters under control, even around areas where people live. During nesting season, they will also eat and feed their young snakes, lizards, frogs, fish, crayfish, grasshoppers, and even songbirds like blue jays, pigeons, and doves.
• Young Barred Owls can climb trees by grasping the bark with their bill and talons, flapping their wings, and walking their way up the trunk. This enables them to come back to the nest, even if they are not quite ready to fly.
• Barred Owls don’t migrate, and they don’t even move around very much. Studies have shown that they rarely move more than five or six miles from where they were born their entire lives. However, as a species, they have expanded their range westward into the Pacific Northwest and California often at the expense of their close cousins, the threatened Spotted Owls.
• The oldest recorded Barred Owl was at least 26 years, 7 months old. It was banded in North Carolina in 1993 and caught due to an injury in 2019. One long-lived Barred Owl nicknamed “Pi” continues to delight visitors to nearby Fort Snelling State Park year after year and is often seen during the daytime perched along popular walking trails near the Minnesota River or Snelling Lake.

Share your photos of and your experiences with Barred Owls with us in-store or on our Facebook! or Instagram pages!