Owl house is a very very very fine house
January 20, 2024 3:24 PM   Subscribe

We want to buy an owl house to encourage owls to nest in the yard. Do they work?

By owl house I just mean one of the (less than fifty dollar, wooden) bird houses on the market that say they are specifically meant to attract owls to nest there. So, f you have put up an owl house, I would be interested in hearing if you’ve seen/heard hints that an owl moved in, or if it just became another squirrel condo.
I definitely live in an area with owls and have seen them once in a while, hear them a lot. This is just to get to hear and see them more often.

Also - if you have put up an owl house, how did you get it far up enough in a tree to make it a good space for owls? Most normal house ladders don’t go up that high, did it make a difference if it was normal-ladder height?
posted by ojocaliente to Home & Garden (6 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: What kind of owls? They prefer different stuff. Here are good instructions for barn owl boxes from an extension service. A good search technique for reliable information here is to search for the owl species, 'nest box', and 'extension service'.

One key note there is they say to mount only 8ft high. The owls prefer higher but they will use them at 8ft, and they really like clean boxes, so better low and clean than high and less maintained.


(I am a biologist but not that kind. I have built and observed nest boxes for a variety of birds but not owls. Yet :)
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:20 PM on January 20, 2024 [2 favorites]


Best answer: To elaborate on SaltySalticid's comment: do your owls hoot or screech? To a first approximation, screechy owls like Barn Owls use boxes, hooters like Great Horned Owls don't.
posted by agentofselection at 4:23 PM on January 20, 2024 [1 favorite]


Best answer: You need to know what kind of owls live near you so you can get the right kind of house or platform. I would guess screech owls would be the most likely to actually use a nest box in your yard. If you're hoping to attract something else, you should probably keep your expectations low. This Cornell Lab of Ornithology page on nest boxes has instructions for building and placing boxes for a lot of different species, including some owl species. Even if you don't want to build the house yourself, you can look at what dimensions and hole size are recommended and see if the house you're thinking of buying matches that.
posted by Redstart at 6:43 PM on January 20, 2024 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Robert E Fuller This man has a channel devoted to building different types of nesting boxes for different owls among the other wildlife on his property. You can look among his library of clips to find the kind of birds you would like to attract. Good luck!
posted by effluvia at 8:07 PM on January 20, 2024 [1 favorite]


Mod note: One removed. Please stick to answer OP's question rather than general chat. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 9:56 PM on January 20, 2024


We have a lot of screech owls in our area, now including one who must live in the tree outside my bedroom window. I love to hear them. Unfortunately, when we built a screech owl house according to instructions found online, no owls ever found it to their liking. After some years some squirrels made use of it, which we were happy to see.
posted by metonym at 2:48 PM on January 22, 2024


« Older Food and Stuff near Providence St. Vincent Medical...   |   ADHD Question #6036899 Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.