The request came by phone: “I would like to have one of your Owl photos to display.” The caller, our non-birder but avid art collector brother, went on to explain that he had a wall where he displayed a number of owl paintings, sketches and drawings and wanted one of my owl photos to add to the collection. While I was quite honored by the request, I had no idea what he was actually looking for. He gave me size parameters for printing and said I should just pick out a favorite owl photo and send it to him.

I sent him email copies of all of the owls depicted here, as well as several northern owls that very rarely, if ever, are seen in Florida. He punted the ball back to me and suggested I just print up what I considered to be my favorite and send it to him. I printed four from this collection and forwarded them to him. I now leave it to you to decide which four I picked and I hope you will let me know your choices. My brother has informed me that he has not been able to decide, but will definitely add one to the Owl Wall Art Collection and hang another one in another room. I remain curious to find out which ones he chooses.

Florida has five regularly occurring species of owls.  Arguably the cutest, most interesting and smallest of the bunch is the Burrowing Owl (photo 1 at the top of the page and photo 2). While I do not know of any current locations for them in St Lucie County, they were present here back in the 1990’s when I first started coming to Fort Pierce. Birding friends have told me they have been seen more recently at a location in Port St Lucie.

Burrowing Owls are ground nesters, quite active in the daytime and can be found at Brian Piccolo Park in Hollywood, Florida, Lakeside STA on SLAS field trips, and are quite easy to find in Cape Coral on the west coast of Florida, where they nest in some resident’s lawns. Those residents fortunate enough to have them are very protective of them and even provide little perches for them near their nesting burrows.

Another Florida owl that is active in the daytime is the Barred Owl. (photo 3) A common resident of swamps and wetlands, their call of “Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all” drawing out the “all” at the end, can be heard even if the caller can’t be found. We have found them in Savannas County Park, in the swamp at Gordy Road Preserve, Bluefield Ranch and have heard them at other locations in St Lucie County as well as on SLAS field trips. Cavity nesters, we have seen Barred Owls in their nest holes in Bombay Hook NWR in Delaware in past years.

Probably the most common of the Florida Owls, as well as up north, is the Eastern Screech Owl. (photos 4 and 5) While they are harder to find because they are not active during daylight hours, when we do night-time owling on Christmas Bird Counts, virtually every patch of woods will yield one or more Eastern Screech Owls, responding to recordings of their own whinny call. Cavity nesters, the parents will remain close to the nest hole when they have young in the nest. The pair in photo 4 was seen on an SLAS field trip to Green Cay in Boynton Beach, where the park staff had erected a barrier to protect the owls from observers, some of whom were thoughtlessly harassing them in an effort to get them to move to more open locations for better viewing. Eastern Screech Owls come in three flavors, gray, brown and red, and young in a brood can be color mixed and matched from the same pair. The pair in photo 4 is one gray and one brown. The red phase Eastern Screech Owl in photo 5 is in the elongated, ears up threat posture to make it appear larger than it really is in its effort to scare us off.

The largest of the Florida owls is the Great Horned Owl (photos 6 and 7). While most active at night, Great Horned Owls can also be found at dawn and dusk and their hooted calls can be heard at that time, particularly in the late fall, early winter time frame when they are getting ready for nesting. Great Horned Owls are famous for taking over some hawk’s nest rather than building their own. Photo 6 was taken in the evening right behind our condo unit in Fort Pierce several years ago, and photo 7 was taken in the early morning in western St Lucie County when this parent was staying close to its young chick which was nearby. I also have photos of the chick, but did not think my art collector brother would want one of those as they are not particularly attractive and certainly don’t qualify as cute.

The fifth and hardest to find of Florida’s owls is the Barn Owl. (photos 8 and 9) Barn Owls are becoming quite scarce. When I first began birding in the late 1940’s I could go to at least five different locations in our small hometown in Pennsylvania where one could find Barn Owls. Today active birders in my Pennsylvania home county, Bucks, approximately the geographical size of Indian River, St Lucie and Martin counties combined, tell me they do not know of a single location where Barn Owls can be found. It is very distressing to say the least.

The bird depicted here was found a number of years ago in a barn in western St Lucie County and is the only one I have ever seen in Florida. Photo 8 shows its brownish back, while photo 9, getting ready to fly, shows its all white under-side. Barn Owls are also cavity nesters and out west, where they are more common, property owners will put up nesting boxes for them, particularly in vineyards where the Barn Owls serve as rodent control.

Everyone knows that owls are famous for being “wise.” I’m not sure where that reputation came from but I still remember a psychiatrist that I sometimes worked with once referring to a patient as “crazy as a hoot-owl.” So take your pick: “wise” or “crazy.”  Maybe it’s in the eyes: they can look wise with the big round “smart glasses” look; or they can look “bug-eyed” suggesting a crazy person.

Either way, owls take a little more effort to see than most other species. But finding them can be quite rewarding and satisfying. Maybe it’s because birders often stumble upon them unexpectedly. Kind of like finding a rare seashell while walking on a beach. Or some left over ice cream in the back of the freezer that you forgot was there. Hopefully, chocolate.

For more on the Owls of Florida, see: http://www.nbbd.com/godo/ef/OwlsOfFlorida.pdf.