Of 19 owl species found in the United States, more than half are losing populations – a similar trend to all birds. Sadly, many species of owls are declining with some highly threatened, says Wiedenfeld. Owls are losing habitat, but all is not lost “Owls have special feathers that are softer than a lot of birds. They make almost no sound in flight,” so they can surprise their prey. “If you look at their feather patterns, (they’re) very intricate,” Wiedenfeld says. “Often with bright yellow eyes, it’s fascinating how these birds can hunt in the dark- their vision is amazing at night,” says David Wiedenfeld, Senior Conservation Scientist with the American Bird Conservancy. They help humans with pests, he says, eating an average of six mice or rats a night. Carlos Carreno/Moment RF/Getty Images/FileĪnd, he says, they make such cool sounds - hooting, tooting, and trilling. Open grasslands are shrinking where the tiny burrowing owl makes its home nesting in underground burrows. In the caves of France, there are etchings of owls scratched on the cave walls.”Ī family portrait of burrowing owls in Florida. “They have been so since prehistoric times. Holt says owls are one of the most widely recognized groups of animals in the world. “We tend to gravitate to animals with big, round eyes.” “They’ve got a big head they have the symmetry of the eyes, nose and mouth,” muses Holt. “Maybe it’s because they look like us,” says, Denver Holt with the Owl Research Institute. That’s double the birdwatching going on just eight years ago.īut there’s something particularly special about owls people seem to appreciate. A survey by the US Fish and Wildlife Service found a whopping 96 million people now take part in observing or photographing birds in parks or their backyards. Owls’ popularity has soared in the US along with the number of Americans engaged in birdwatching.

During the pandemic, people who had never been interested in the wildlife in their own backyards began to take notice. The attention to Flaco’s life and death isn’t an anomaly. The reactions almost seemed outsized – but paying attention to nature will do that to a person. We had come to know Flaco, in a way. A necropsy showed he had also ingested a potentially lethal amount of rat poison.įalling for birds – why we are attracted to owls After a year on the lam, Flaco died after flying into a Manhattan high rise. Flaco fans posted social media updates every time they sighted him soaring, landing and catching prey, sparking an intense love affair.īut then it was over. The gorgeous creature with a six-foot wing span, piercing orange eyes and tufted ears captivated the world as he flew freely throughout Manhattan. The plight of Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped New York’s Central Park Zoo last year, showed just how tough it is to survive in a world altered by humans.

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