Revised 8 August 2008
Information on Owls
Descriptions |
Habits |
Pictures |
Sanctuaries |
Artwork |
OPOP |
Books |
Resources |
Other Owls |
Collectibles
Start with the North American Owl Encyclopedia covering nineteen species of owls. You'll find pictures, commentary from the owl "species reps," games, and links.
A variety of owl species are profiled in the Montana Animal Field Guide from the state Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks.
The North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service (at NCSU) Extension Forestry Group has developed a series of information sheets entitled "Working With Wildlife," including one on Owls with descriptions of several owl species and tips for owl management (no photos, though).
Owls: Their Habits and Habitats is a webpage maintained by Coveside Conservation Products which makes bird houses and feeders.
The Raptor Center of the University of Minnesota has information sheets (including some with video clips) on several owl species.
The Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago has prepared a series of Species Data Sheets on birds, which includes:
Likewise, the Oregon Zoo in Portland, OR, has several fact sheets:
Screech Owls are the focus of this blog by Jim Wright of New Jersey. He has included many video clips and pictures as well. Marcel Granger's Eastern Screech-Owl page has some pictures also.
You can find out more about building nesting boxes for
and then there's the long, award-winning International Barn Owl Restoration Page from Douglas Trapp.
Also, check out Barn Owl Headquarters for other nest box designs.
The Burrowing Owl and the Short-eared Owl are among the "species of special concern" at the California Department of Fish and Game Central Valley Bay-Delta Branch.
Ray Rasmussen's page on the Burrowing Owl also includes many links to owl resources. Additional information (with Web links) on the Burrowing Owl of South Texas is available from the Columbia Environmental Research Center of the US Geological Survey.
The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan of Pima County in Arizona has a document on the endangered Cactus Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl as well the Mexican Spotted Owl which is a threatened species. Also, the Burrowing Owl has been chosen as a Priority Vulnerable Species.
The Lesser Sooty Owl is an Australian endangered species.
The native owl of New Zealand is the Ruru, more commonly known as the morepork. An owl with a similar call is the "mopoke" or Southern Boobook Owl, which is found all over Australia. Another picture and factsheet of the Boobook is at the Government of Western Australia's NatureBase.
Strigiformes (Owls) of the World is a checklist of the owls of the world, compiled by Robert B. Hole, Jr.
You can see dynamically generated maps of the distribution of many owl species at Owls of the Western Hemisphere, which covers North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean.
Research is going on at the University of Oregon on Barn Owls and their
Hearing. General information on Owl Hearing and other
traits can be found on a U.S. Forest Service site on Owls.
The Forest Service has also published a Techical Report on Owls of Old Forests of the World.
The University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences has short reference sheets on the Barn Owl and Barred Owl.
CNN has posted a story entitled Growers find barn owls protect their crops, along with some video clips.
The OwlCam Home Page follows a family of Barn Owls with photgraphs and commentary over several years.
There are several pictures of Owls in the French Riviera including two barn owls and several eagle owls.
The U.S. Geological Service's Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter has information pages with pictures, distribution maps, and identification tips for many owl species.
Some samples of owl photographs are on display at Photovault. Hundreds of owl-related pictures are available (for sale) at Foto Search, a stock photography site.
There are several images of owls among the hundreds of birds sighted on the grounds of the Fermilab in Batavia, IL.
Five owls can be found on the Birds Of Prey In Oklahoma Webpage maintained by the Tulsa Boardwalk.
Several pictures of Saw Whet Owls are featured in a liitle book published by Hummingbird Mountain Press.
"An organisation dedicated to owl conservation" is how the World Owl Trust describes itself. The Website has information on and pictures of several kinds of owls.
The World of Owls has established Northern Ireland's first owl sanctuary. Their Website has a nice gallery of some of the birds in their care.
The Barn Owl Centre, with information on barn owl habits, prey, and nests, is located in England.
The Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Kempton, PA, bills itself as "the world's first and best-known refuge for birds of prey." The Raptor Gallery is currently unavailable, but there is a section on owls in its publication Enjoying Hawk Mountain: Teacher Guide.
The Berkshire Bird Paradise in Petersburg, NY, cares for more than 150 avian species, including owls. Also in New York State is the Hudson Valley Raptor Center.
New Jersey has the Raptor Trust (which has published a new edition of Leonard Soucy's book "New Jersey's Owls") and the twin Scherman-Hoffman Sanctuaries, where you may find great-horned and screech owls.
You can also go birding at the Inyo National Forest in California, and encounter several species of cavity-nesting owls.
Owl Facts is a short information page offered by the Birds of Prey Foundation based in Colorado.
Owl Box Plans (for Barn Owls and Barred Owls) are offered by the Carolina Raptor Center.
The Southeastern Raptor Center at Auburn University offers plans for building a nestbox for screech owls.
The Owl Research Institute is based at the Ninepipes Center for Wildlife Research and Education in Montana. Lots of information on owls may be found under the "Research Projects" link. Look for the OWL ID GUIDE icon as well.
The Whitefish Point Bird Observatory is a major hawk and owl observatory on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, with hawk, waterbird, songbird and owl counts and owl banding during spring and fall migrations. Look for their photo album of juvenile Saw-whet Owls.
The Furness Owls Park has
pictures and information on several species.
Other raptor centers may be found listed at O.W.L. Links maintained by the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society of Canada.
The Audubon Adopt-a-Bird Center for Birds of Prey invites you make one of their raptors "part of your family."
This Owl Mask was designed by Jan Brett for a Mitten Play based on her book.
Owl paintings and sculptures are featured by the Worldwide Nature Artists Group .
The Owl Pages are the work of Deane Lewis - very detailed and extensive.
Owling.com claims to be the "largest US Website totally dedicated to owls" with images, audio recordings, and field notes for many species of owls found in Central and North America.
There are many images and lots of information on Lou's Owl Page.
The Owls Plexus of Dr. Bruce G. Marcot (a wildlife ecologist) includes many photographs, owl calls, and scholarly reports.
Check out the Oehoeboeroe page (Dutch for owl,
pronounced 'uHuburu') for some illustrations and unusual information... Then, consider the counter-claims of the Oeroeboeroe page.
Many more Raptor
Sites are listed by OpenHere.
There are many books on owls at Rutgers University Libraries:
- Alcorn, Gordon Dee. Owls : An introduction for the amateur naturalist. Prentice-Hall, 1986. (CAMDN QL 696 .S8 A43 1986)
- Burton, John A., editor. Owls of the world: Their evolution, structure, and ecology. Tanager Books, 1984. (CAMDN, DGLSS, LSM QL 696 .S8 O9)
- Cameron, Angus, and Peter Parnall. The nightwatchers. Four Winds Press, 1971. (DGLSS QL 696 .S8 C35)
- Clark, Richard J. et al. Working bibliography of owls of the
world: with summaries of current taxonomy and distributional status.
National Wildlife Federation, 1978. (DANA REF QL 696 .S8 C53)
- De la Torre, Julio. Owls : their life and behavior : a photographic study of the North American species. Crown, 1990. (DGLSS QL 696 .S8 D4)
- Hoke, Helen, and Valerie Pitt. Owls. Franklin Watts,
1975. (ALEX JUV QL 696 .S8 H56)
- Johnsgard, Paul A. North American owls : biology and natural history. Smithsonian Institution Press. (DGLSS, LSM QL 696 .S8 J64 1988; CHANG, DANA QL 696 .S8 J64 2002)
- Maslow, Jonathan Evan. The owl papers. Dutton, 1983. (DANA QL 696 .S8 M33)
- Shaw, Richard, editor. The owl book. Frederick Warne, 1970. (ALEX JUV PZ 8.3 .S534 OW)
- Soucy, Lew. New Jersey's owls. 1980. (SPCOL QL 696 .S8 S6)
- Sparks, John, and Tony Soper. Owls: their natural and unnatural history. David & Charles, 1970. (DGLSS QL 696 .S8 S67)
- Steyn, Peter. A delight of owls: African owls observed. Tanager Books, 1984. (LSM QL 696 .S8 S744)
- Taylor, Iain. Barn owls: predator-prey relationships and
conservation. Cambridge University Press, 1994. (DGLSS QL 696 .S85 T38)
- Toops, Connie M. The enchanting owl. Voyageur Press, 1990. (DGLSS QL 696 .S8 T66)
- Voous, Karel Hendrik. Owls of the northern hemisphere. MIT Press, 1989. (LSM FOLIO QL 696 .S8 V66)
- Walker, Lewis Wayne. The book of owls. University of Texas Press, 1993. (DGLSS QL 696 .S8 W26)
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A forthcoming book from Firefly Books is:
by Frances Backhouse.
(some with images and/or pictures)
Don't quite know where this belongs:
The Translation of 'Owl' in Harry Potter (Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese versions)
... and finally
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~au/owl.htm
Ka-Neng Au
au@rutgers.edu