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US Wild Animal Rescue Database: Animal Help Now
International Wildlife Rescues: RescueShelter.com
Australia Rescue Help: WIRES
Germany-Austria-Switzerland-Italy Wild Bird Rescue: wildvogelhilfe.org
If you find an injured owl:
Note your exact location so the owl can be released back where it came from. Contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitation specialist to get correct advice and immediate assistance.
Minimize stress for the owl. If you can catch it, toss a towel or sweater over it and get it in a cardboard box or pet carrier. It should have room to be comfortable but not so much it can panic and injure itself. If you can’t catch it, keep people and animals away until help can come.
Do not give food or water! If you feed them the wrong thing or give them water improperly, you can accidentally kill them. It can also cause problems if they require anesthesia once help arrives, complicating procedures and costing valuable time.
If it is a baby owl, and it looks safe and uninjured, leave it be. Time on the ground is part of their growing up. They can fly to some extent and climb trees. If animals or people are nearby, put it up on a branch so it’s safe. If it’s injured, follow the above advice.
For more detailed help, see the OwlPages Rescue page.
Community Rules:
Posts must be about owls. Especially appreciated are photographs (not AI) and scientific content, but artwork, articles, news stories, personal experiences and more are welcome too.
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AI is discouraged. If you feel strongly that the community would benefit from a post that involves AI you may submit it, but it might be removed if the moderators feel that it is low-effort or irrelevant.
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From Izzy Edwards
Female Barn Owl on the left has tan breast plumage with many spots, male (on the right) has paler breast in comparison with little to no spotting.
Most owls we can't tell apart visually, but Barn Owls are one that we often can.
Do you favor the design of one or the other? I like the spots on Ms Owl, though Mr does have the whitest of white feathers.... 🤔
I wonder if there are markings on there in infra/ultra wavelengths that they can see but we can't.
Different birds are able to see past our visible light spectrum on both ends, but owls don't seem to have all that much conclusive research on the subject.
I skimmed this paper, it's got a lot of things I don't understand, and it sounds like owls gave up a lot of the cones in their eyes for more rods. The cones are normally what detects UV light, but despite them not having the same cones as other birds, they still were leaning to owls having some degree of ability to see UV. The extent of that ability seemed to vary between the 4 species they looked at though, so it may exist for some owls and not others. Different owls are active at different times of day, so there could be quite a bit of variance, especially with near 250 species. Someone more understanding of the subject could probably make much more sense of the data provided here than I could though.
I didn't have time to look much through this either, but there are also people that suspect barn owls of picking up some type of bioluminescent fungus from trees that gets on their feathers making them luminous, even potentially being the inspiration for mythical things like Will o' the Whisps. Seemed interesting if one has the time.