If you live in a neighborhood and have a longing to photograph owls, one solution is to build a split-log house as a lure and hope for the best.
Photo Above: It took six weeks, but then an eastern screech owl showed up at the structure Ryan Rice created with that hope. © Ryan Rice.
I do a lot of wildlife photography, but outside of the birds that come to my feeders, I normally have to go out into the woods, lakes, rivers and mountains to capture my photos. Living in a neighborhood with houses on all four sides, I don’t see a lot of wildlife.
One type of animal that has always eluded my photography excursions is owls. So after a few neighbors told me they had seen owls around, I decided to try to attract one by building an owl house.
I didn’t have high expectations that I would be successful. However, I decided there was no harm in trying and I like to build things, so why not?
I researched various owl-house designs, but most are just simple boxes built out of plywood. With photography in mind, I wanted something as natural-looking as I could create, so I decided to go in search of a fallen hollow tree I could use.
I found one that was about 18 inches in diameter. I cut a section out of it. It split while I was doing that, so I used hinges to put it back together. That way I could open it and clean it out if needed. I put a roof and floor on it and cut an opening. And being the nerdy/techy guy I am, I put two video cameras aimed at the owl house—one in the top looking straight down and one on the outside watching the opening.
These cameras would record 24/7 and require wifi (no internal storage), so I had to find a way to extend the wifi signal 100 feet from my house to make the cameras functional and allow me to watch live and also review the footage from any point over the previous several weeks.
The cameras even tag motion events, making it easier for me to review for potential visitors to my structure.
I hung the house in a tree on my property line and hoped for the best. About six weeks later I finally noticed some activity. Sure enough there was a small eastern screech owl in the house.
To say I was excited is putting it mildly. I got to observe and photograph this owl over the next couple months, even going as far as to put my camera on a tripod and taking photos using a remote trigger while I was inside my house.
It was an exciting time for a wildlife lover. The owl spent almost the entirety of its days sitting in the opening soaking up the sun and sleeping. Then late at night it would go out for its adventures and return early in the morning. Sometimes it would return in between to eat a meal it had scored.
Some of my neighbors enjoyed my posts about the owl and started asking about it, but alas, the “All good things come to an end” axiom kicked in: After those first few months, the owl’s visits became less and less frequent. Eventually, they stopped altogether. I had hoped I would get to watch the owl raise a family in the owl house, but was happy with what I got to observe.
I kept the house up in hopes the owl would return, but time went on and it slipped from my mind. After a while, I decided to check in on my cameras and was surprised to find an opossum sleeping in the house. I started paying more attention and found it was coming daily, sleeping for upwards of 20 hours a day.
Then after a couple days, I noticed tiny pink-worm-looking babies in its pouch. It wasn’t the owl I had hoped for but I love any wildlife and had fun watching the babies grow from tiny hairless creatures into miniature copies of their mother. I had never found opossums particularly cute but they definitely grew on me. I got to learn a lot I never knew about opossums from these observations. Eventually, the opossum family grew too large for the small confines of the owl house and moved on.
After around a 10-month absence a screech owl started returning to the owl house regularly. It seems the owl house is more of a winter residence. Luckily, I kept the cameras in place and was able to catch its return. So, we are once again able to enjoy watching and learning about the night-time bird of prey. The owl is a very skilled hunter, and watching it bring in a meal that is as large as itself is always amazing. I have also since wrapped the base of the tree in metal to try to keep the opossum and owl from having a conflict over who is the primary tenant.
Over the past year there have been visits from many other creatures also: squirrels, red-bellied woodpeckers, northern flickers and many other birds.
The owl house has been and continues to be a great source of entertainment and education for my family and me.
The story above first appeared in our March / April 2023 issue.
