Owl questions, answered

Owls can turn their heads as much as 270°. They cannot turn them all the way round. source Owls have 14 neck vertebrae; humans have seven. source

The leading wing feather has a row of tiny hooks that deaden the sound of air hitting the wing, and the feather surfaces are soft and hair-covered. source Owls’ velvety, serrated flight feathers cut wing noise above about 2 kHz, below the hearing range of their usual prey. source

The classic “tu-whit tu-who” is really a duet: the female’s kew-wick and the male’s answering hooo. source If you regularly hear an owl hooting, it is likely to be a tawny owl. source

Barn owls don’t hoot. They shriek, hiss and snore, and they rarely call. source

Barn owls swallow prey whole but can’t digest fur and bone, so they cough the leftovers up through the beak as a pellet. source Pellets don’t smell and are not droppings, but always wash your hands with soap and water afterwards. source

In 2008 Defra’s lawyers advised the Barn Owl Trust that owl pellets are not “derived from” birds, so they may be collected, kept or traded without a licence. source Pellets pile up at roosts and nest sites. Collect quietly: barn owls are legally protected from disturbance when nesting. source

Dead owls, eggs and feathers are different. The law bans possessing wild-bird parts unless you can show they were obtained lawfully, and selling them is illegal unless you are a registered person. source

A young tawny owl on the ground is usually fine: it is “branching” and its parents will feed it. Leave it where it is, or put it up on a branch nearby, the same day and before dusk. source A young barn owl on the ground is different. The adults normally feed only in the nest, so a fit owlet must go back into the actual nest. source

It is legal to pick up an injured or sick wild owl, provided the sole intention is to release it once it can survive. source The RSPCA counts birds of prey among larger animals that shouldn’t be handled. source

Owls rarely drink. They get almost all their water from their food. source

In Britain, barn owls eat mainly small mammals: field voles make up about 45% of the diet, common shrews 20% and wood mice 15%. source A barn owl typically eats 3–4 prey items a night; feeding a pair and their young works out at almost 4,000 prey items a year. source

Most owls are nocturnal, but some hunt by day, such as the short-eared owl and the burrowing owl. source In Great Britain the western barn owl also hunts by day, though it is nocturnal over most of its range. source

Most barn owls die in their first year, so average life expectancy in Britain is only about 18 months. source Records differ: the Barn Owl Trust says the oldest barn owl found in Britain was 18 years old (European record 30), while BTO’s ringing record is 15 years 3 months. source

Once a barn owl settles a home range it will almost certainly stay for life, and barn owls are very faithful to their mates. source

Tawny owl: Amber-listed. It is the UK’s most common owl, but RSPB says numbers fell by more than 40% between 1995 and 2023. source BTO: about 50,000 pairs of tawny owls (2005). Its detailed trend is −39% (1967–2024), though its summary box calls the trend “stable”, because tawnies are hard to monitor. source

Manx BirdLife now says small populations of tawny owl “appear to have become established in recent years.” source But Manx BirdLife’s 2021 conservation assessment lists tawny owl among species that have nested only occasionally, with no definite or probable breeding records from 2006 onwards. source

How many owl species are there? It depends who is counting. Wikipedia’s owl article says “over 200” in one place and “some 220 to 225” in another. source Owl experts Martin & Mikkola (2014) noted that recognised species had risen from about 130 in 1984 to over 250, with more than 100 of those still waiting on DNA confirmation. source

Owl eyes are so big for the skull that they have become tube-shaped and are fixed in their sockets, so an owl turns its head instead of its eyes. source Barn owl eyes are, on average, twice as light-sensitive as human eyes, and very movement-sensitive. Anything that keeps still and silent is usually ignored. source

Releasing a captive-bred barn owl is illegal (up to £5,000 and/or 6 months’ prison per bird), and the owl is unlikely to survive more than a week. source

Most rat poisons used today are highly toxic SGARs (second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides). source The share of barn owls found contaminated with these rodenticides peaked at 94% in 2015; the latest (2022) figure is virtually 80%. source Safer rat control, in order: remove food, remove shelter (harbourage), encourage natural predators, and use traps. Poison is a last resort. source