New York City’s Latest Famous Family Is a Hoot. Yes, They’re Barn Owls.
New York Times · LC · trust 25/100
The city’s latest feathered extraordinaires are captivating the Upper West Side with their screeches.
Listen · 6:36 min Share full article 24 A flock of barn owls has taken up residence in a water tower on the Upper West Side. Credit... David Barrett By Christopher Maag
From the patio of her apartment on the Upper West Side, Ms. Williams likes to watch the swallows, blue jays and pigeons sailing by.
Whatever made this noise, though, was no common pigeon.
Weeks passed. Ms. Williams and her husband, Sam, kept hearing the same odd screech. Mr. Williams was on the patio the evening of Oct. 3 when he saw the dark blur of an animal flying by. His wife tried to take a picture of the creature, but it seemed too dark to see anything.
Moments later, she checked the photo on her phone. To her surprise, she saw the image of a barn owl, a species seldom spotted in Manhattan. Its heart-shaped face was turned to look over its brown wings, exposing its belly, which was covered in feathers the color of butterscotch.
Then came another surprise: Scotty was not alone. A block away, atop a building on West 75th Street near Central Park West, the Williamses could faintly see an entire family of barn owls perched on the roof of a water tower. They sent pictures of the birds to West Side Rag, a newspaper that covers the neighborhood. From there, the pictures were picked up by local TV stations and spread across social media .
New York’s newest owl celebrities had arrived.
“They fly really close, almost like they’re divebombing us,” Mr. Williams said. “We definitely want to stay out of their way.”
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