Family of Up to Eight Barn Owls Nests in Upper West Side Water Tower, First Known in Manhattan in Modern History
New York City is a city in New York County, New York. The newest celebrity family in New York City is not a group of Hollywood stars or musicians, but a family of barn owls that have made a water tower on the Upper West Side their home. Since their arrival, birders have been flocking to catch a glimpse of the nocturnal residents. Experts say these barn owls are the first known in modern history to have nested in Manhattan — a welcome event given the species' rapid population decline in New York over the past few decades and how extremely rare the birds are in the city.
As many as eight barn owls — two adults and up to six juveniles — have been spotted at a hole in the water tower, according to CBS News. Upper West Side resident Elisabeth Williams recalls first hearing a series of screeches in September; she and her husband heard the same sound from their apartment patio for weeks and first identified the bird using the Merlin bird ID app. On October 3, Williams finally snapped a photo confirming it was a barn owl, and she named it Scotty. David Barrett, a birder who runs the Manhattan Bird Alert social media account, told CBS News it is a truly special experience that people can come out to a public space and look at the owls at night.
Jessica Wilson, executive director of the NYC Bird Alliance, told CBS News the presence of a nest in the middle of the country's biggest city is really exciting, and she told the New York Times the family's arrival is great news. Paul Sweet, an ornithologist and collection manager at the American Museum of Natural History, said the Upper West Side owls are an indicator that some environments in New York City are becoming more raptor-friendly. The state sits at the northern limit of the species' range, and its habitat has decreased dramatically due to land development.
At the same time, birders and experts worry the owls are at risk of poisoning, because they feast on rodents and rats in New York City are often poisoned by rodenticide. Wilson told CBS News that if barn owls are eating several rats a day, they are likely to fall prey to that secondary poisoning. In 2024, Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl that escaped from the Central Park Zoo, died after hitting a building; post-mortem examinations found he had ingested four different types of rodenticide. The city later passed Flaco's Law, which includes a pilot program to curb rat populations using contraceptive methods rather than rodenticide.
(Source: Smithsonian Magazine, October 13, 2026)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 仓鸮（资料图）。图片来源：Wikimedia Commons · Carlos Delgado 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0 授权
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