Stop Searching Randomly: How to Find Owls in the Wild

Owls are like phantoms. They have incredible eyesight, they're super stealthy, and once you've passed them, they will wait till you're not looking and take off and fly somewhere safer. Most people will walk right under barred owls without ever knowing that they were there. Barred owls and other owls do leave clues that we can follow in order to find them. So if you watch this video, I'll tell you about those clues, what you should look for, and how to have success finding and photographing barred owls. So how do you find them? Well, It's really helpful to understand their habitat, number one. Barred owls specifically like hardwood forests. They don't need vast stretches of wilderness. In fact, you're likely to find them in areas close to human activity. Places where there's fields, meadows, and even backyards where they can hunt rodents, snakes, amphibians, those sorts of things. Barred owls like to sit in hardwood trees, so even if you're in a mixed forest with lots of pine, don't spend your time looking in pine trees. They're most likely between 15 and 30 feet up into the air, when they're perched. Barred owls are usually under 2 feet tall, kind of oval-shaped. So if you look not for an owl but for a lump that's about a half a meter tall, or about 20 inches tall, that is tight up against the trunk of a tree, you're more likely Looking at a barred owl. Something else about barred owls is they don't stray too far from wet areas— creeks, streams, wetlands, those sorts of places. So you shouldn't either if you're looking for them. They're going to be within a couple hundred feet, maybe half a kilometer at most. from water. That said, unlike a lot of birds, owls don't normally spend a lot of time drinking water because they get most of their moisture from their prey. Speaking of hunting, I mentioned to look for owls between 15 and 30 feet up in a tree. That's the area that they're going to spend most of their time in. However, if they're hunting, they're probably going to be lower. Remember, Barred Owls will eat small rodents and snakes as well as amphibians, so they're going to spend their time when they're hunting lower to the ground. They're going to be looking for prey even a few feet above the ground, maybe 2 feet above the ground. If they found Something that's moving that they're interested in. If it's springtime or early summer, there's a good chance that you can find barred owls by their call. Their call is "Who cooks for you?" So if you hear. What sounds like a hoot followed by, who cooks for you? It's either somebody playing a recording or you're hearing a barred owl. But their fledglings, on the other hand, don't make the same sounds. Fledglings, which are much easier to find when they're out of the nest and making a lot of noise, fledglings call is shrill, screechy, scratchy kind of sound. Because like other babies, when they're hungry, they will make those calls with regularity. They're much easier to find than their parents. So What's the easiest way to find barred owls to photograph? Well, the absolute easiest way is to join a birding group. I'm in Atlanta and we have Birds Georgia here, but if you're elsewhere, something like the Audubon Society, or look for walks that local parks— or park rangers rather— and municipal groups are doing called owl prowls. Those are probably your best introduction to where owls are going to be found in and around where you live. Once you know where to go, and now that you know what to look for or where to look specifically, it's important to scan these hardwood trees From the ground up. If it's evening time or early morning, within a half an hour to an hour of sunrise or sunset, then you want to start at ground level and you want to look all around you quietly, carefully. Again, we only need to check hardwoods. One other thing to note is time of year really matters. I mentioned spring, early summer for hearing Barred Owls, but also that's a perfect time if you know where they are nesting, if they're in a nesting box for example, it is a perfect time to know, or at least to look for, where the father might be because he's not going to be in the nesting box Except when he brings food for mom and/or the fledglings as well. The father is going to be somewhere within line of sight where he can easily see the nest if anything is coming to do any sort of harm. One very important consideration is that no matter where it is that the owls land and perch and hang out, They're going to be looking for escape routes. So that is areas like above me here where they have a clear path that they can fly through. This means if you locate them and you position yourself in that flight path, you're more likely to get bird-in-flight photos. So you found where they like to hang out. There's hardwood all around, there's water nearby, but how do you know which trees they're likely to be in? The answer to that is to look for 2 things. The first one is owl pellets. And if you're not familiar with owl pellets, owl pellets are the bones and feathers and fur and other undigestible things that the owl will spit back up after eating. They spit them up in a nice tight little ball— well, I say tight, it's like a fluffy loose little ball. They spit those out and they land somewhere near the base of the tree. Now because owls have favorite trees, Those can collect in those areas. The other thing to look for is called whitewash. What is whitewash, you ask? Well, you may regret asking that because whitewash is poop. Just like the owl pellets that they've thrown up, they will have poop accumulate on or at the base of a tree that they like to to perch at. The more you find, the more popular of a perch site that's going to be for them. This means, once you've discovered it, that you can come back and carefully check that area often. Finding and photographing owls is not something that you will likely do just one time. At least I hope not. I hope you'll go out and do it often and have a lot of success with it. I say that because understanding the behavior of owls, learning what they like to do, how they do things, is part of the big pleasure of getting to photograph them. Seeing them stretch their wings out, seeing them stretch their legs out, Seeing them yawn, seeing how siblings interact is fascinating. Once you've found them, of course, getting good photos of them and not just documentation that you found them can be a challenge. But if you remember those escape routes, those open paths like what we have here above me where there's clear area that they can fly through, partly thanks to this man-made walkway here. Once you identify those areas, then it becomes so much easier to find them over and over again and to position yourself in places that allow you to take incredible photos. If you are on their exit escape path and the wind is at your back, they are likely to fly directly towards you, giving you incredible options when it comes to bird-in-flight pictures. And as I've mentioned in other videos, if you watch for them to poop, they're more likely to take off just after doing so. So if you feel the wind behind you blowing towards them and they poop, get that camera ready because you're probably going to get some great bird-in-flight shots. Speaking of opportunities for better photos, better composition, better-looking photos, the best way to get better-looking photos is to come out around the time that they are still feeding. That is early in the morning right after sunup or in the evening shortly before sundown. When they're active and when they're hunting and they're lower to the ground, only 5 feet, 10 feet off the ground, your chances of getting a picture with a nicer looking background go up dramatically. Your chances of getting a photo with incredible-looking lighting go up dramatically. This is very important if you want to create photos that people love to look at. And when I say people, that includes you as well. Try to get out there early in the morning or late in the evening and find those owls. If you want to know more about that how to make photos with a lot more light that are really interesting to look at, specifically when it comes to owls, watch this video here for that information. I greatly appreciate you being here. I'm so thankful that you found this video and that you've watched this far into it. If you enjoyed the video, I really hope that you'll like it so other people can see it and that you'll subscribe to the channel so that you can watch all the content that I'm creating. Thank you again, and I will see you next time. Bye-bye.