Barn Owl Family Found Nesting in Upper West Side Water Tower in Manhattan

Some of the newest residents of Manhattan’s Upper West Side live in a hole in a water tower, work the night shift and pay no rent, which makes them the envy of everyone else on the Upper West Side. They are barn owls, and experts say they may be the first of their kind known to nest in Manhattan in modern history.¹²

The family has settled into a water tower near West 76th Street and Central Park West. That’s a park-adjacent address, and presumably the owls got it without a broker. Birder David Barrett, who runs Manhattan Bird Alert, photographed two adult owls and as many as six youngsters at the site.²

Head counts differ a bit from report to report. In fairness, try taking attendance for a family that only comes out after dark and has never once filled out a census form.

A Screech, an App and an Owl Named Scotty

Neighbors Elisabeth and Sam Williams first heard screeching in September. Plenty of New Yorkers hear screeching. Fewer investigate. The couple figured out what was making the noise with a bird-identification app called Merlin, then snapped a photo of a barn owl on October 3. Elisabeth named the bird Scotty.¹

Scotty, it turned out, had roommates. On October 6, the couple photographed at least four, and possibly five, owls on the water tower. The pictures were blurry (the owls did not book a portrait session), but Manhattan Bird Alert said they were consistent with barn owls.⁴

Some birders had a hunch this was coming. Andrew Eastwick said he and his friends had been spotting adult barn owls in Central Park for more than a year and suspected a nest somewhere nearby. Where the owls spent their days stayed the neighborhood’s best-kept secret until they were found on the water tank on October 7.³⁷

Why a Handful of Owls Is Big News

The city’s Parks Department describes barn owl sightings in New York City as extremely rare.² Across New York State, barn owl numbers have been dropping fast. The state sits at the northern edge of where the species lives, and development has shrunk the open land the birds depend on.¹

So when a barn owl family sets up housekeeping in Manhattan, a borough not famous for its wide-open fields, people notice. Jessica Wilson, executive director of NYC Bird Alliance, put it simply:

The presence of a nest right in the middle of the country’s biggest city is really exciting

Paul Sweet, an ornithologist (a scientist who studies birds) at the American Museum of Natural History, told the news site Hell Gate that the owls show some parts of the city are becoming friendlier to raptors, the birds of prey that include owls and hawks.¹ (The pigeons were not asked for comment.)

This isn’t the species’ first time on the island, though. The birding site Urban Hawks notes that barn owls certainly nested in Manhattan centuries ago, and says this may be the first nest record in the last century.⁷ Think of it as a comeback tour with a very long intermission. Wildlife photographer and author David Lei offered a verdict most of the neighborhood seems to share: “The fact that there is a barn owl nest in Manhattan is something to be celebrated.”¹

The Night Shift Draws a Crowd

The young owls have started taking test flights around the water tower at night while their parents go out hunting.² It’s basically driver’s ed, except the instructors leave to pick up dinner.

Birders have been gathering after dark to watch, a live feed of the tower was set up for visitors, and observers are being asked to give the family plenty of space.²³⁶ Yes, the owls have a livestream now. So far they have not asked anyone to like and subscribe.

Longtime birder Bruce Yolton told West Side Rag why the scene matters beyond the birds themselves: “Just like with Pale Male and other birds, nature can really connect people and ground them, and we kind of lose that in the city sometimes.”³

There is one real worry. The owls eat rats, and experts fear they could be poisoned by rodenticide, the poison used to kill rodents, if they eat rats that have swallowed it.¹ After Flaco the eagle-owl died in 2024, the city passed Flaco’s Law, which includes a pilot program that tries rat contraceptives instead of poison.¹² (Birth control for rats is a real thing the city is testing, and the owls would very much like it to work.)

For now, the young owls keep practicing their flying over West 76th Street, and the best seats in the house are a respectful distance away or on the live feed. Either way, the newest neighbors handle rat patrol for free, which may be the rarest sighting in Manhattan of all.