I have loved and observed birds since I was a little girl. However, even into my 50's, I never saw an owl. Spotting (and photographing) one became my amateur birding mission! I did everything wrong at first, and learned slowly. However, even though I have spotted many now, each sighting is awesome and thrilling! One note, even though owls are nocturnal, they don't "disappear" in the daytime. They are still around, just hiding well- mostly.  This young Barred owl hopped up onto a branch in front of me at 10 in the morning!

Yes. My first time seeing owls, they were in captivity, at a park in Hokkaido, Japan.  They have at least 20 different species including a snowy owl.  In Osaka, there is also an "Owl Cafe" that I visited, where patrons can eat and see watch different kinds of owls.  This experience was before I became interested in birding, now I think it is sad they are all captured and not free. The first and only owl I have seen in the wild was an Ural Owl, actually a few.  They were breathtaking.  I couldn't stop taking pictures.  

What a fabulous course! It's encouraging me to investigate more of what eBird has to offer. I'm so thankful to have the chance to listen to owls who live halfway across the world, ones I'll never get to hear in real life. I've been on a few Owl Prowls which mostly did not find any owls... but it's always so much fun to go with like-minded people, because you never know if this will be the time 5 or 6 owls will show up! A few years ago I did see an owl swoop down my street in the city, on a winter night. I don't know if it was during the snowy owl irruption year. It was a white owl, though. They're just the most fascinating birds!

Thank you for offering this course!  Owls are amazing birds. I have seen quite a few. I would really like to see a Snowy Owl but I live in a part of the US that doesn’t have that owl!  This is a barred owl that was photographed in Lower Suwannee NWR, in Florida.   I was also fortunate enough to watch and photography juvenile Great Horned Owls.  I have also seen Burrowing Owls.  They are smaller than I thought they would be.  I did see a Eurasian Eagle Owl as well but this was because the owl was in a rehabilitation facility and cannot be released into the wild again.  

This is a wonderful course! Thank you for offering it! And thanks for the opportunity to hear the owl encounters of others! My encounters with owls have primarily been while hiking in the high desert of southern California during the winter months. Here are two photos of owls I have seen there: A long-eared owl that was day-roosting in a shady canyon in Joshua Tree National Park; it looks startled not just because of my presence but because it was being mobbed by California scrub jays. And a western screech owl looking out from its nest hole in a cottonwood at Whitewater Canyon Preserve. This photo of the screech owl is especially interesting because I think it illustrates that some owls have independent pupillary control of their eyes; the pupil in the shade is open wider than the one in the sun.

Last year I watched a pair teach their babies how to hunt. I heard them first, when I turned the lights on, they didn't leave, just looked around. Right in my back yard, our house backed up to a 30 acre green space. I think they were barred owls, based on their calls, and description, but I didn't get any pictures. There were three babies and two adults. It was incredible.

I have actually seen quite a few owls in real life but my favorite was back in February 2013 when the irruption of Snowy Owls extended down to Tybee Island, Georgia where one hung around to long enough for me to see it.

So far I have seen Snowy owls, Northern Hawk Owl, Bard Owl, Great Horned Owl, Barn Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Long-eared Owl, Burrowing Owl, and Eastern Screech-Owls in the wild. I have seen the Tawny Owl and Eurasian Eagle-owl in captivity.

For many years, I lived beside a wetland and saw many Barred Owls in that area. "Who Cooks for You? Who Cooks for You All?" we heard many times, even on cloudy days. We'd see parents teaching their babies to hunt. While we sat by our campfire, we'd see them drifting silently through the trees. There was a nest box installed in the wetland, and I'm sure that was where baby owls were raised. But it wasn't only Barred Owls, I was also awakened at night by the sound of Great Horned Owls, especially during their January mating season. But that sound has mainly disappeared with so much development in our area. We live in Mooresville, NC, a very populated area full of new subdivisions, created by builders who clearcut the land, unfortunately.

I lived in rural Alberta, Canada for a number of years. Each winter I would see owls on occasion perched at the top of telephone poles or sometimes fence posts. I'm not sure of the species, but in my memory they are black/grey/brown and white and have ear tufts or horns. Great horned owls? One Fall the snow came very early and many of the barley crops were left in the field, buried in snow until spring. Mice seemed to feast on that grain, under the snow, and their population exploded. (Our house, and the houses of our neighbors, were invaded by mice.) That winter the owls were everywhere--it seemed almost every telephone pole had one at the top. They feasted on the mice, who were feasting on the grain. Magnificent animals.

My first encounter with an owl was when I was just 16 years old… First time with the car allowed to go out of town with two friends… Driving along a dark road in the country at night an owl was in the middle of the road and I couldn’t miss it… I did hit it and it broke its neck… 😭The three of us girls cried picked it up and put it in our trunk to take back home with us.. my parents or terribly unhappy with a smashed up front grill… I’ve had many encounters with owls since then… I saw a snowy owl by the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in Minnesota and we had a mom and two baby owls (I think they were great horned owls) in our yard by the river at our home in Wisconsin... and we had a very large gray owl probably the great gray owl at our cabin two years ago and all of its outlets were making noises in the trees… My neighbor recognize the sound… And one of the outlets flew up and sat on our deck… I do have a picture but I can’t

A snowy owl was reported in Texas a number of years ago and I and three of us hopped in the car on an Easter Sunday and traveled west, about an hour from Fort Worth. The owl was in a field just sitting, relatively far away but wonderfully visible with my scope. We spent about 45 minutes watching it, letting some youngsters view the owl through the scope. Texas is quite far south for them but I later learned that it was an irruption year so there were quite a few spending the winter away from their usual habitat. Another owl; a barred owl in the next backyard about 9:00pm on a spring evening. This is the bird that got me into birding as I was so excited in seeing it I bought my first pair of binoculars the next day! A friend and I were sitting on her deck looking at the river and watching the beavers that would swim by each night. I heard a slight "swish" on my left and looked up. A barred owl had landed on a branch and it had a mouse by the neck in its mouth. The wind was blowing its feathers and I shone my flashlight on it. We looked at each other, it lifted a leg and put the mouse in its talons and then flew to a lower branch. Another brief stare at each other and then it was off. I can visualize this entire interaction 20 years later.

A young family in our sugar maple in Aurora, NY

I saw once a tropical screech owl (Megascops choliba) dead in the road. It loooked like he was hitten by a car a few hours ago. It was really sad... (Medellín, Colombia)

The only owl I've ever seen in the wild was a snowy. Pretty cool for a first owl!