Owls in the UK: The 5 Breeding Species and Where to See Them

The five UK owls at a glance

Most owls are active at night, so UK population figures are estimates with wide ranges. The sizes and numbers below come from the RSPB and the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO).

All five hunt mainly small mammals, especially voles, mice and shrews, and swallow small prey whole before coughing up pellets of fur and bone. Our guide to what owls eat explains their diets in more detail.

Tawny owl: the owl you hear at night

The tawny owl (Strix aluco) is the UK’s commonest owl, with roughly 50,000 pairs. It is a stocky, round-headed owl with mottled reddish-brown plumage, a pale facial disc and large black eyes, and it has no ear tufts. Some birds are grayer than others.

Tawny owls are strictly nocturnal. They are woodland birds at heart, but they have adapted well to farmland with mature trees, large gardens, churchyards and city parks. They nest in tree holes and readily use large nest boxes, and an established pair may keep the same territory for life.

The famous “twit-twoo” is not one owl but a conversation: a sharp “ke-wick” call, often given by the female, answered by the male’s long, wavering “hoo-hoo-hoooo”. Tawny owls are noisiest in autumn, when pairs drive the year’s young out of their territories, and again in late winter before nesting.

The species breeds across Great Britain but is absent from Ireland, including Northern Ireland, and from the Isle of Man, Orkney, Shetland and the Outer Hebrides. It is Amber-listed in the UK’s Birds of Conservation Concern because of a long-term decline. Tawny owls defend their nests fiercely: the bird photographer Eric Hosking lost an eye to one in 1937.

Barn owl: the pale hunter of the fields

The barn owl (Tyto alba) is the owl most people picture floating over a field at dusk. From above it is golden-buff with fine gray speckling; below it is white, and its heart-shaped white face and dark eyes are unmistakable. In car headlights it can look completely white. Our barn owl profile covers the species in depth.

Barn owls hunt over rough grassland, field margins, ditches, riverbanks and road verges, flying slowly a meter or two above the ground and listening for prey. Field voles are their most important food, and breeding success rises and falls with vole numbers. Barn owls do not hoot: the adult call is a long, hoarse shriek, and chicks in the nest hiss and make snoring sounds.

They nest in old barns, hollow trees and, increasingly, purpose-built nest boxes, which have helped numbers recover strongly since the 1990s. The RSPB gives a figure of about 4,000 pairs, but official estimates have ranged up to 14,000 pairs, and BTO surveys suggest the population has roughly tripled since the mid-1990s. Hard winters, wet springs and traffic on major roads still kill many young birds.

Little owl: the introduced farmland owl

The little owl (Athene noctua) is the smallest UK owl, about 22 cm (9 in) long and weighing 140–220 g (5–8 oz). It is squat and flat-headed, with brown plumage spotted with white, bright yellow eyes and pale “eyebrows” that give it a stern, frowning look. When alarmed, it bobs its head up and down.

Unlike the tawny owl, the little owl is often active in daylight, especially early and late in the day, sitting on fence posts, farm buildings and the branches of old trees. It favors lowland farmland with hedgerows, old pollarded trees, orchards and parkland. It eats beetles, earthworms and other invertebrates as well as small mammals and small birds, and its usual call is a plaintive, rising “kee-ew”.

The little owl is not a native British bird. A release of Italian birds by the naturalist Charles Waterton in Yorkshire in 1843 failed, but later releases by Edmund Meade-Waldo in Kent from the 1870s and by Lord Lilford in Northamptonshire from the late 1880s succeeded, and the species spread rapidly across England. Gamekeepers blamed it for taking game-bird chicks, but a BTO diet study in the 1930s found that it ate mainly insects and other invertebrates.

Today little owls live across much of England and Wales but are scarce in Scotland. BTO surveys show a steep decline of about 88% since the late 1960s, and the UK population is estimated at 3,600–5,700 pairs. As an introduced species, it is not assessed on the Birds of Conservation Concern lists.

Long-eared owl: the hardest to find

The long-eared owl (Asio otus) is a slim owl with orange eyes and long tufts of feathers on its head, which it raises when alarmed. The tufts are not ears: like all owls, it hears through openings hidden at the sides of its facial disc. At its daytime roost it stretches tall and thin against a trunk, and its camouflage makes it very hard to spot.

It breeds in conifer plantations, shelterbelts, scrub and woodland edges next to open ground where it hunts voles and mice, and it usually lays its eggs in an old nest built by a crow or magpie. It is strictly nocturnal and quiet for an owl: the male’s song is a soft, low “oo” repeated every few seconds. In early summer, hungry chicks give a high-pitched call often compared to a squeaky gate, which is the easiest way to locate a breeding site.

The UK has an estimated 1,800–6,000 pairs, a wide range that shows how secretive the species is. In winter, birds from Scandinavia and continental Europe arrive, and long-eared owls sometimes gather in communal roosts in dense scrub or hedges. On the island of Ireland, which has no tawny owls, it is the most widespread owl.

Short-eared owl: the owl you can watch by day

The short-eared owl (Asio flammeus) is the UK owl most often seen in broad daylight. It is a long-winged, buff-and-brown owl with streaked underparts and yellow eyes set in black “eye shadow”. Its ear tufts are tiny and rarely visible. In flight, look for dark patches at the wrists, black wingtips and a pale trailing edge to the wing.

It hunts by flying low and slowly over open country: upland moorland, young conifer plantations, rough grassland, dunes and saltmarsh. Field voles are its main prey, and more pairs breed in good vole years. Unlike other UK owls, it nests on the ground among heather or long grass. In spring the male performs a display flight high over the territory, clapping his wings together beneath his body.

About 620–2,180 pairs breed in the UK, mainly in the uplands of northern England, Scotland and Wales, with a well-known population on Orkney. In autumn many more arrive from northern Europe to spend the winter on lowland coasts, marshes and grassland. The species is Amber-listed in the UK.

How to tell UK owls apart

• Pale owl hunting at dusk: usually a barn owl, white below with dark eyes. A short-eared owl can also look pale, but it has yellow eyes, dark wrist patches and a streaked breast.
• Hooting at night: a tawny owl. Barn owls shriek, and long-eared owls give only soft, low hoots.
• Small owl on a post in daytime: a little owl.
• Owl with ear tufts: a long-eared owl if the tufts are long and the eyes orange; a short-eared owl if the eyes are yellow and the tufts barely show.
• Owl hunting over a moor or marsh in full daylight: most likely a short-eared owl, although barn owls also hunt by day in winter and when feeding chicks.

Eye color is one of the best clues: dark in barn and tawny owls, yellow in little and short-eared owls, and orange in long-eared owls.

When and where to see owls in the UK

Owls are easiest to find around dawn and dusk. Winter is often the best season, because short days and cold weather push hungry barn owls and short-eared owls to hunt in daylight.

• Barn owls: watch rough grassland, river valleys and coastal grazing marshes in the last hour before dark. East Anglia, the Somerset Levels and many lowland river valleys are good areas.
• Tawny owls: listen rather than look, on still nights from October to December and again in late winter. Large parks, old woodland and churchyards are good places.
• Little owls: scan old trees, fence posts and farm buildings on lowland farmland in England and Wales, especially on spring mornings and evenings.
• Short-eared owls: visit coastal marshes and grassland between November and March, such as the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, or upland moors in spring and summer.
• Long-eared owls: listen for squeaking young near conifer woods in June and July.

Watch from a distance, keep to paths, and never use flash or recorded calls near nests. All wild birds, their nests and eggs are protected by law in the UK, and the barn owl also has special protection under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which makes disturbing it at the nest without a licence an offence in Great Britain. Owls belong to the nocturnal animals that need dark, quiet places to hunt.

Rare visitors: snowy owls and scops owls

The snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) of the Arctic is a rare visitor, seen mostly in northern and western Scotland and its islands. It has nested in Britain only on Fetlar in Shetland, where a pair bred every year from 1967 to 1975. After the male disappeared, one or two females returned each summer until 1993 but never bred again. Snowy owls are listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN.

The Eurasian scops owl, a tiny migratory owl of southern Europe, occasionally overshoots its breeding range in spring and turns up in Britain, often detected by its short, whistled “tyoo” call.

Eurasian eagle-owls: escaped giants

The Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) is one of the largest owls in the world, with a wingspan of up to about 1.8 m (6 ft). It is widespread in continental Europe, but birds in Britain are treated as escapes from captivity. Eagle-owls are popular with falconers and private collections, and some escape every year.

Remains show that eagle-owls lived in Britain in prehistoric times, but they died out long ago. Since the 1990s a small number of pairs have bred in the wild, mainly in northern England and Scotland, most famously in the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire. Whether these birds should count as native, and how they affect other wildlife, is still debated. Some reported “eagle-owls” have turned out to be other escaped species, such as great horned owls or Indian eagle-owls.

Owl myths and facts

• “Owls can turn their heads all the way round.” They cannot. Owls can rotate their heads up to about 270 degrees, helped by 14 neck vertebrae, twice as many as humans.
• “Owls cannot see in daylight.” All UK owls see well by day, and short-eared and little owls regularly hunt in it.
• “Owls live a long time.” Many wild owls die in their first year, especially in hard winters. Our guide to how long owls live gives typical lifespans and ringing records.