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!