Imagine that you’re out at night and hear a strange call. Maybe it sounds like someone asking who made your supper, or a laughing troop of monkeys, high up in the trees.

What creature is making these weird noises? It’s the familiar, friendly barred owl!

An easy way to identify this owl is by its signature hoot: It sounds like a deep voice saying, “Who cooks for you?”

They are round-headed birds, with large, solid black eyes and yellow beaks. They have wide, brown wings and white breasts streaked with brown.

The barred owl is fairly cosmopolitan, meaning it does well in developed areas, and co-exists alongside human beings.

One downfall to this versatility is their tendency to recognize roads as an easy source of food. This increases the likelihood of vehicles striking barred owls. This usually happens when people throw litter out of cars, which attracts small scavengers like mice and rats to the roadways and ditches. The prey draws the owls near to the road, with often tragic results.

Aside from rodents, these owls are also excellent predators of songbirds. You might even see barred owls during the day, especially in springtime. They are often discovered in their daytime sleeping areas and chased by songbirds, which “mob” the owl into leaving their territory with dive bombings and quick pecks.

Barred owls also are commonly seen hunting during overcast or rainy days, particularly if a pair is busy raising a nest full of owlets. These owls typically raise at least two, and sometimes three, sets of offspring per season.

In our Fort Wild exhibition, we often see barred owls in spring, including young owlets.

The proximity of the Museum to the large, open fields of Freedom Park and the Little Sugar Creek Greenway means there is plenty of prey around.

So keep an eye on the trees next time you’re walking down our boardwalk. You might spot one of our barred owl buddies!