Barn owl family nests in Manhattan water tower, a first in recorded history
A barn owl family has settled in a water tower on a building near Central Park, drawing crowds to the Upper West Side every night. Residents first noticed the birds through screeching sounds that started in early September.
A nest in the city
A family of barn owls has settled in a water tower on the roof of a building on West 75th Street, close to Central Park West on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Crowds have been gathering on the street every night to catch a glimpse of the birds. One expert cited by The Independent says it is the first documented instance of barn owls nesting in Manhattan in modern history. Photographers and bird watchers now visit the building in the evenings, and local media have covered the sightings since early October.
How residents discovered the owls
The first clue was sound rather than sight. Elisabeth Williams and her husband had heard periodic screeching outside since early September and at first assumed a bird of some kind was making it. They grew skeptical until a phone app identified the noise as coming from a barn owl. Thomas Obersteiner remembers hearing screeching and wailing from outside one evening in mid-September, a noise that continued every night for two or three weeks. On 6 October, Williams told a local news outlet that she and her husband had seen multiple owls at the water tower, after spotting a single owl on an apartment windowsill a few days earlier. Williams described the experience this way:
In a place like Manhattan, you normally really have to go out of your way to encounter nature.
Counts and disputed figures
David Barrett, a Manhattan-based birder who runs the Manhattan Bird Alert account on social media, says he has seen at least one adult owl and five young birds that have already left the nest. He also watched an adult carry rodents back to the water tower. Barrett believes two adult owls may be present, while some photographers say they counted six young. Barrett argued that a single barn owl would not be news on its own.
Having one barn owl is a rarity, but it's not national news.
In his view, the special part is a family breeding in Manhattan for the first time in recorded history.
- Elisabeth Williams and her husband begin hearing periodic screeching outside
- Thomas Obersteiner hears screeching and wailing from outside one evening
- Williams tells a local news outlet she and her husband saw multiple owls at the water tower
Expert reaction
Andrew Farnsworth, a migration ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said the discovery surprised even specialists. He said the sighting was totally shocking to him and to other birders.
It was, like, totally shocking.
According to the collective knowledge of birders, no nest has been recorded in Manhattan, at least in recorded history.
Wider context in New York
New York is often described as a concrete city, yet rare animals regularly settle there. Articles cite a mandarin duck and an owl named Barry in Central Park, and a turkey named Astoria at the southern tip of Manhattan. The owl Flaco escaped from the Central Park Zoo and became a social media star. Barn owls are nocturnal, feed on mice and small birds, and have become rare in many parts of the world.
