Years ago I hung an owl box on the big maple tree in my yard. It remained owless for years. In the fall of 2023 I moved the box & by the spring of 2024 I had my first pair of nesting owls. THIS is a guide to hanging an owl box properly.
I suddenly became very motivated to find a new place for my owl box when a) the tree it had been taking up space on was cut down and b) I heard a screech owl in my neighbourhood late one summer night.
A screech owl, as you can possibly hear, sounds like a whinnying horse. Now that you know what it sounds like, one evening you will hear it and know immediately that it's a screech owl.
The night I heard that sound in my backyard I immediately started a "Hey Owls, come live at my house" campaign and rehung the owl box paying very close attention to doing everything right.
I put it 13' off the ground, facing S/E, and I pruned away any branches hanging in front of the box opening so the owl has a clear path.
By late winter, Snacks arrived.
Now that you're motivated and realize it is indeed possible to attract an owl with an owl box, even after a decade, read this guide so you do it right.
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Table of Contents
Where
- Hang the box from 10 - 30 feet high.*
- The best direction for it to face is South or East (they'll bask in the sun)
- The box can hang facing any direction except North.
- The box must have a clear flight path to it, trim a few branches if you have to.
- HOWEVER, branches right around the owl box opening is a great thing. The owls will use them to hop onto before starting their rounds at dusk and that's where the young will literally learn how to spread their wings and fly.
* I have NO idea how you'd get it hung 30 feet high but that's an option for you if say, your legs are 20 feet long.
When
- Nesting and coupling takes place in late winter/early spring. Beginning in February or March male owls will start looking for a maternity home for his lady friend.
- Owls are always looking for roosts and houses to stop and rest in even if they don't live there. Ergo, the best time to hang your owl box is as soon as you get it.
How
- Stuff a couple of handfuls of dry leaves or pine shavings into the bottom of the box before hanging it. Screech owls don't "make" their own nest, so it needs to be pre-nested. Owls prefer home births. And therefore need a comfy home.
- If you don't have a tree you can hang the box on a pole.
- Make sure the box is hanging level or tipped forward a tiny bit from the top. That way when it rains, water won't get into the box.
- At the end of each season or early in the new year, place another handful of leaves into the nesting box as new nesting material for the owls.
Owls are excellent rodent control but if you have serious mouse issues in your house, my mouse control post is probably going to be more helpful.
Facts
- Screech owls are tiny by owl standards. They're the same height as a starling, but rotunder.
- The noise Screech owls make sounds more like a horse whinny like the one you heard at the beginning of this post. They don't actually screech so don't worry about that.
- Wondering if you have screech owls around you? You probably do. They live across most of North America.
- Owls even have the added distinction of barfing up tiny bones after their dinner so they're pest control and Halloween decoration providers all rolled into one. Owls regurgitate "pellets" full of undigestible material they've eaten. Like mouse bones. If you find a pellet and pull it apart you can tell exactly what the owl has eaten.
You can also build your own Screech Owl house with these free plans.
Snacks did indeed bring a bride to my owl house.
They had an owlet, raised and fledged him. They still use the owl box as their daytime home and will probably do so for the rest of their lives.
And THAT is what can happen if you properly hang an owl box.
Lois Baron
Love your owl house.
My head is kinda exploding from wondering whether how well bats and owls share territory and what I could do to keep the jerk squirrels out and how to protect them from the #$% neighbors' outside cat that regularly leaves bird carcasses on doorsteps.
I think I'm just going to see how yours goes. PLEASE post photos when you get adorable owls in there. I live so much of my life through you.
Karen
Trust me, if I get owls in this thing I"ll be live streaming them, lol. Happy to be your surrogate life. ~ karen!
Julia
So my cat used to be a bird slaughterer. Then I got her a BirdBeSafe collar- and no more birds! She went from 3 a week to zero! I couldn't believe it actually worked.
http://www.birdsbesafe.com
Lois Baron
Thanks so much for passing this info along!
Jody
Do you have to clean out the owl house every year or do the smart owls do their own housekeeping?
Also love the sap seeping down the bark. Gotta love it when the sap is running.
Karen
I've read conflicting reports about housecleaning. Some say no, you don't have to clean it out and some say to take it down once a year to clean it. I'm inclined to think leaving it is best. There are drainage holes in the bottom in case any moisture gets in it etc. And yes. Stupid sap! I felt bad for my tree. It already has 2 taps on it. None of which are producing like the sap from the screw holes of the owl house. ~ karen!
Sandra Dowkes
We think a great horned owl got our cat (a white manx) - we found her collar and tufts of fur across the street and the suspect sat on the light pole in front of our house a couple of days later. I tried to comfort my daughter by saying Freedom died like a warrior, but she indignantly yelled, but she was a DOMESTIC CAT! I couldn't argue.
Barb
OMG! Great post! I love owls (and bats) and I need to do this! We went to a raptor event at our local arboretum and they had a screech owl that they brought around and I got a really close look. Very small and very adorable. And the barn owl was also cute. The big ones were awesome too but I wouldn't want to leave my animals unattended around say, a great horned owl. They are massive! But also adorable in their own "grumpy cat" looking way.
Heather
The box is lovely to look at and it'll be even sweeter once your owl family moves in. Can't wait!
Karen
Fingers crossed! ~ karen
Sandra D
I'll give this a try at our campsite NE of Sundre, AB. We do have owls there, although I don't recognize this bird sound. If the squirrels like the house, so be it. We have big owls in Calgary; shortly after our pure white stubby tailed cat went missing ( her collar and fluffs of fur were found across the street ), one was seen sitting on the street light pole outside our house.
I tried to tell my daughter that Freedom died like a warrior, but was indignantly told that she was a DOMESTIC CAT.
Lois Baron
I'm sad your daughter was so unsupportive!! Who knows what she'll say when the owl carries you off?!!!
Sandra D
I think she was the one who felt unsupported. Freedom was her cat. :)
Nice image (I should make an ATC showing an owl carrying off a person), but the owl would have a lot of difficulty carrying me off, lol. Freedom weighed maybe 3 pounds, and I don't want to tell you how many pounds you'd have to add to get to my weight!
E
So, would you come over and hang the bat house that has been, um, "decorating" my screen porch/tool shed/laundry room for about [deleted due to acute embarrassment] years?
(please?)
Karen
Um ... no. It took me forever to get my own owl house hung, lol. I'll be over here cheering you on. ~ karen!
Sarah Engels
Got super stoked about this when I first read the article, but I too have chickens. However, aren't owls nocturnal or do some of them hunt during the day? I would love to have an owl box and my chickens are securely locked up at night and even though I don't let them out to free range in a very large fenced area unless I am home, there is no way I can watch them every second and would never be fast enough to catch an owl. =)
Karen
Hi Sarah. I mentioned in the post that these screech owls are only the size of a pint glass. They're only tiny and would have no interest in trying to take down a chicken. Mice? Yes. Chickens? No. So don't let having chickens stop you. :) ~ karen!
Sarah Engels
Thank you. I wasn't sure if any other type of owl would try to take the box but my guess is the other owls are too big and therefore are not a problem. Thank you for the clarification. =) Love your blog BTW.
Sarah
Karen
Yup the other owls wouldn't have any interest in this cute little box. :) And thank! ~ karen
Sher Miller
Yes! Just checked and we have Eastern screech owls here! Yaay! (It's the little things...)
Sher Miller
I occasionally hear a hoot owl in nearby woods. We live in SE Tennessee, which is far more southern than northern. I'll have to google to make sure screech owls are in my area; meanwhile, do you think you'll have a problem with other birds (like yucky starlings) taking up residence in your cool owl home?
Nancy
wow! we must live in a parallel universe! My father and brother made me a screech owl box a few months ago and it too is sitting in my dining room , collecting dust and curious looks from the cat, waiting to be hung outside. We are waiting for the snow to be gone before we can put up a ladder in the yard. Do keep us posted on your screech house!
Ev Wilcox
Thanks for the birdsongs! I will look into getting a box soon. And I don't care if the squirrels take over-I feed them, and the Cardinals and Blue jays that like unsalted Peanuts as well!
Kathy Bond
That’s exciting!! We had a screech owl living nearby, never saw it but they do sound like a horse! So they are around. Good luck!
Monica
This is great! I had no idea that the screech owls were so small! I'll have to look into this for my yard. Thanks for the links.
Carrie
How do you keep squirrels from nesting in it? My boyfriend built me an owl box last year, currently being used by a jerk squirrel.
Melissa
That was my thought, too. We have pretty brazen squirrels in our woods.
Jan in Waterdown
You're too kind. Squirrels are assholes. There. I said it and I mean it ... lol.
Mary W
Congrats on your coming arrivals - owls are wonderful and useful to have hanging around. One time when I was young and very foolish (now I'm a 50 years older but still----), an owl mother brought her three babies to our telephone pole in the back yard to teach them how to get bugs. We had a light installed on it so we could see at night into the backyard - plenty of bugs. Anyway, we also had cats (outside cats that were fierce). I woke up to find them playing with two of the owls but one was still ok. I ran and got it before the inevitable happened. I put the baby into an old bird cage and set it in a back room next to an open window hoping it would feel more at home. I tried giving it tiny bits of raw hamburger but it was scared to death. It's eyes were open wide as I came towards it slowly with the bit-o-meat stuck to the end of a popsicle stick. Must have looks like a snake slowly coming in for lunch. Baby just leaned backward until it fell of the bar and landed on its back with feet up, eyes wide open. Even though that was funny and still makes me smile, he had to eat. That happened several times until I discovered if I came at him from the back and touched his head, he would lift his head with his mouth open to get the meat. I kept it alive for a few days until one night I heard a screech. The Mom had found it and was hanging on our screen with a lizard in her mouth trying to give it to her baby. I was so excited. I got my husband to crawl up onto the roof of our deserted chicken coop and set the baby which was still inside the bird cage but we ripped the top off so Mom could feed it, keep it safe from falling and have a happy ending. Mom did find it, got it to fly out and brought it to the light pole where my cats then enjoyed another late night snack. It was horrible and fifty years have not erased the sad memory of my feeble attempts to mess with mother nature. Good luck!
Therese
oh that was terrible. Truth is sometimes unkind. Life is sometimes unkind. I am glad you shared all of that though.
Still, I would have done the same. And, have other versions of your story.....
Thank you for sharing real life. And death.
Tew
Debbie
Always something new! I love it! Now I want one!
Sabina
Love this! And I listened to the owl calls and they’re lovely! I want to put one up at the beachhouse. I don’t have any yard trees at the ‘burb house and I’d probably have to get permission from the town to put one in my street tree...which is a maple that I’d also like to tap next year...but we’ll do that at the beachhouse too...Thanks Karen
Lisa
Looking forward to the pics too. Typical for Aus - we have an owl called a Powerful Owl - will take cats, small dogs and very large possums and probably even a "Drop Bear". I like the smaller owls (although powerful owls are magnificent) and the "not really owls" - Tawny Frogmouths - these keep the rats out - and also keep the snakes under control. Love owls. Jealous of your owl box. :-)
Toni Guerrero
I can't wait for the photos of baby owls that are going to follow!
We have very big owls here in Texas. They carry away my chickens and cats. It's rather annoying. I'd love to get a chubby Sparrow sized owl instead!