by Rob Thorn
They’re the birds that seem to fascinate everyone. Owls. Perhaps it’s their forward-facing eyes, maybe its their mysterious nocturnal lives, but most folks will stop to look for owls. I used to think that they could never be more than a rare curiosity in Columbus, with the Barred Owl families of Blacklick Woods the exception that allowed us to see owls regularly. But my work over the years with local censuses like the CBCs has widened my ideas about local owls. They’re probably a lot more common than we imagine.
Columbus has lots of Barred Owls.
Central Ohio has many Barred Owls, with nesting pairs along most of the stream corridors in town, from Big Darby on the west to Blacklick Creek on the east. Most of the large forested Metro Parks have 1-2 pairs, and many of the smaller streamside parks also have them. The few nests I’ve seen have been in large hollow Sycamores or Beech trees, so forests with those types of trees are most likely to have them. Blacklick Woods has been the featured forest for them, but they are also found at Blendon Woods, Highbanks, 3-Creeks, and Battelle Darby, among others. They start calling in February, and they’re probably in a forest plot not too far from you.
Columbus still has a few Great Horned Owls, but they are barely hanging on.
This is probably the common owl of agricultural areas, and is abundant in rural areas around Ohio. But Columbus has few rural areas left for these owls. They used to nest in many of our suburbs, like Gahanna, Westerville, and Dublin, but are now hard to find. Likely, it’s habitat loss that is pushing them out as farm fields turn to housing and data centers. They like to hunt open field and wood edges, and those types of habitats are scarce with all of our suburban sprawl. They still haunt some of our open areas, like Glenn International Airport, Waterman farms at OSU, and 3 Creeks Metro Park. They’re already calling as I write this, being one of our first owls to set up nesting territories.
Screech owls may be as common as Barred owls here, just more discreet.
These little guys are tough to locate, though, and, really, your best chance of finding them is hearing their soft tremulous calls. Increasingly, we’ve found them in riparian forests deep inside Columbus. Just this year, a visiting birder found one in Old Beechwold, and we’ve had them in Clintonville, Westerville, Gahanna, and Groveport. As with Barred Owls, cavities in tree – usually oaks, sycamores, or beeches – seem to be their preferred roost and nest sites. But they will accept artificial nest boxes in the right habitat, and some areas like Adena Ravine in Clintonville have boxes put up for them.
We struggle to find open-country owls.
Open country birds of all types are becoming scarce around Columbus, especially inside I-270. Owls of fields and edges – Barn and Short-eared owls – just aren’t found here anymore. Barn Owls nest at Pickerington Ponds, and even stick around there in the winter, one of the most northerly spots for them to winter in the Midwest. But gone are the days when we could see them in multiple spots around the edges of Columbus. Short-eared Owls winter around some of the prairie areas at Pickerington Ponds and Battelle Darby Metro Parks, as well as the OSU Airport. Get out at dusk to look for their floppy, moth-like flight around these prairies. We keep hoping for them at the relic farm fields of Waterman farms or Smith Farms, but no luck so far.