Owl Identification: 19 North American Owls Compared

Ask in this order: how big is it, does it have ear tufts, and what color are the eyes.

Ear tufts are not ears. The Great Horned Owl, Eastern and Western Screech-Owls, Long-eared Owl and Short-eared Owl have them; the American Barn Owl, Barred Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Snowy Owl and Burrowing Owl do not. The tufts can be raised or flattened, so a screech-owl can look tuftless for minutes at a time.

Eye color is nearly binary. Most North American owls have yellow eyes. The Barred Owl and the American Barn Owl have dark eyes, and among the small owls the Flammulated Owl is the one Audubon singles out as our only small owl with dark eyes.

Audubon counts 19 owl species in North America, so the shortlist is never long.

• [Great Horned Owl](/lookup/ducks-and-raptors/great-horned-owl): 18-24 in, wingspan 3 ft 4 in to 4 ft 9 in. Conspicuous ear tufts, a white throat patch and horizontal bars across the belly. Its call is a series of low, sonorous, far-carrying hoots, with the second and third notes shorter than the others. It nests remarkably early, sometimes in late winter in the north.
• [Barred Owl](/lookup/ducks-and-raptors/barred-owl): 17-20 in, wingspan 3 ft 3 in to 3 ft 7 in, 16-37 oz. Dark eyes, no ear tufts, horizontal bars on the chest and vertical stripes on the belly. It has expanded into the Pacific Northwest in recent decades and now competes there with the Spotted Owl.
• American Barn Owl: 13-16 in, wingspan 3 ft 6 in to 4 ft. A heart-shaped facial disk, dark eyes, cinnamon and gray above, white to buff below with small black spots. It does not hoot; its voice is a genuine screech or scream lasting a few seconds, plus hissing, barking and clicking.
• Snowy Owl: 24 in, wingspan about 4 ft 7 in. Older males are almost pure white, young females heavily marked. Yellow eyes, round head, and it hunts by day. Numbers that move south vary from year to year, probably tracking prey numbers in the Arctic.
• Great Gray Owl: the largest owl in North America, with eyes Audubon describes as roughly the size of an adult human's.

• Eastern Screech-Owl: about robin-sized, with short ear tufts that can be raised or flattened, and three color morphs, gray, reddish and brown. The base of the bill is yellow-green. Despite the name it does not screech; its voice is a tremulous, descending wail with soft purrs and trills. It nests in tree cavities and old woodpecker holes 10-30 ft up, and readily uses nest boxes.
• Western Screech-Owl: 7.5-9.8 in, mostly gray. The base of the bill is blackish, against yellow-green on the Eastern bird, and the song is an accelerating bouncing-ball series of 6-8 low whistles, often dropping in pitch at the end. The two were recognized as separate species in the 1980s mainly because their voices differ.
• Northern Saw-whet Owl: 7 in, no ear tufts, warm brown with reddish streaks on a white chest. Juveniles are chocolate brown below with tawny buff underparts and white eyebrows. Usually silent, but in late winter and spring it gives a monotonous series of tooting whistles, and it migrates at night.
• Burrowing Owl: 7.5-9.8 in with a 21.6 in wingspan, long legs and barred underparts. It nests in ground burrows and is active in daylight, especially when breeding. In the West it reuses burrows dug by prairie dogs and ground squirrels; in Florida it digs its own.
• Northern Pygmy-Owl: robin-sized, and along with other pygmy owls it is primarily diurnal.

Short-eared Owl is about 16 in with long, narrow, rounded wings and a short, square-tipped tail. It looks pale and buffy with a streaked chest and black around the eyes, and in flight it shows a black mark at the wrist and a buff patch in the outer wing. The ear tufts are seldom obvious. Its flight is buoyant and floppy, low over the ground, often hovering before dropping on prey, and it is often active in daylight, especially in the evening.

Long-eared Owl is 14-16 in with a wingspan around 3 ft. Audubon describes it as like a smaller, slimmer version of the Great Horned Owl, with stripes rather than horizontal bars on the belly and black markings around the eyes. In winter a dozen or more may roost together in conifers, willows or mesquites.

The two share habitat in winter, and a Short-eared Owl quartering a field can be mistaken for a Northern Harrier at distance. The harrier shows a white rump patch, which no owl does.

Most owl records come from sound, because owls are heard far more often than seen. The voices are distinct in a way the plumages are not: the Great Horned Owl's low, far-carrying hoots with a short second and third note; the Barred Owl's loud barking hoots, screams and assorted barks; the American Barn Owl's screech, which is a real scream and not a hoot at all; the Western Screech-Owl's accelerating bouncing-ball whistles; the Northern Saw-whet Owl's monotonous tooting in late winter.

When you do get a look, photograph the face, not the body. The facial disk shape, the eye color and the presence of ear tufts are the three marks that decide the identification, and all three are in one frame. Photograph it and the app identifies it.

Keep your distance at a day roost. A roosting owl that flushes in daylight is exposed to mobbing by crows and jays, and repeated disturbance moves birds off good roost sites.

Audubon's population estimates put the Great Horned Owl first among the owls we checked, at about 5.7 million, and Audubon describes it as found almost throughout North America and much of South America, from swamps to deserts to northern coniferous forests. The Barred Owl follows at about 3.5 million.

In the East, the owl Audubon describes living in suburban yards is the Eastern Screech-Owl. Audubon estimates about 560,000 and says it is common in city parks and shady suburbs, living anywhere with some open ground and large trees, including suburban yards, and hiding by day in tree cavities and dense vegetation.

The Owl Research Institute lists 19 owl species that breed in the United States and Canada:

• Barn owl family: Barn Owl.
• Large owls: Great Horned Owl, Great Gray Owl, Snowy Owl, Barred Owl, Spotted Owl.
• Eared owls of open country: Long-eared Owl, Short-eared Owl.
• Small forest owls: Northern Saw-whet Owl, Boreal Owl, Flammulated Owl, Northern Hawk Owl.
• Screech-owls: Eastern Screech-Owl, Western Screech-Owl, Whiskered Screech-Owl.
• Pygmy-owls and the smallest: Northern Pygmy-Owl, Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, Elf Owl.
• Ground owl: Burrowing Owl.

The grouping here is ours, by size and habitat, to make the list easier to use; the Institute lists them by family. Its identification checklist covers ear tufts, size, eye and bill color, plumage, activity pattern, hunting style, habitat, voice and range.

The official Kentucky list, kept by the Kentucky Bird Records Committee of the Kentucky Ornithological Society and summarized on Wikipedia (current to January 2023), includes seven regular owls: Barn Owl, Eastern Screech-Owl, Great Horned Owl, Barred Owl, Long-eared Owl, Short-eared Owl and Northern Saw-whet Owl. Snowy Owl and Burrowing Owl are on the list as accidentals.

Most owls heard around Kentucky homes will be one of three: the Great Horned Owl's low hoots, the Barred Owl's barking calls or the Eastern Screech-Owl's descending wail, all described above.

In practical terms, an owl in the yard means the yard has what it needs: somewhere to roost and something to eat. The Eastern Screech-Owl lives in suburban yards with large trees and roosts by day in cavities and dense cover (Audubon), and the Great Horned Owl lives almost anywhere in North America. Audubon also notes that the Eastern Screech-Owl readily uses nest boxes.

If you find one roosting, watch from a distance and keep pets and people back; a roosting owl that is flushed in daylight is exposed to crows and jays. An owl on the ground that cannot fly needs a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, not home care.

Britain has five regular owls, and the Wildlife Trusts and the Barn Owl Trust describe them this way:

• Tawny Owl: the most common owl in the UK, according to the Barn Owl Trust. Mottled brown with dark eyes and a large round head, living in woodland and mature trees, including in towns. It is the source of the familiar night calls: a 'ke-wick' contact call and a quavering 'hoo, hu-hooo'.
• Barn Owl: white heart-shaped face, dark eyes, white underparts, over grassland and farmland. It shrieks and hisses rather than hooting.
• Little Owl: small and flat-crowned with yellow eyes and pale 'eyebrows', often seen in daytime, with a bounding flight.
• Long-eared Owl: obvious ear tufts and deep orange eyes; strongly nocturnal and rarely seen.
• Short-eared Owl: yellow eyes ringed with black, barely visible ear tufts, hunting over moorland by day as well as night.

The Wildlife Trusts give a flight test for the two eared owls: the Short-eared has solid black wingtips, as if dipped in ink, while the Long-eared has fine black barring there. Sizes from the Barn Owl Trust run from the Little Owl at 220 mm tall with a 560 mm wingspan to the Tawny Owl at 430 mm tall.