Barn Owl – One of Our Halloween Birds

A Bird With a Spooky Reputation - Specter in Legend and Myth

Oct 17, 2008

A Halloween Pumpkin Owl Carving, Julia Freeman-Woolpert

Because if its appearance, hunting habits, and roosting sites, the Barn Owl gives people a fright. It turns up in superstition, and in ghost and Halloween stories

The Barn Owl, Tyto alba, is found around the world in temperate regions. A large owl with a wingspan exceeding a metre (about three and a half feet), this species has aroused fear and superstition for centuries. Reflecting this, the species is also sometimes called the Ghost Owl, Death Owl, or the “bird of doom.”

The Barn Owl is a Spooky Bird

The Barn Owl’s appearance and habits have some unfortunate features that make it seem frightening to people:

The bird flies at night, winging over open areas such as fields, marshes, heaths, and cemeteries, hunting for rodents.
Barn Owls are silent flyers, coming without warning upon their prey—and sometimes upon humans who are out in the dark.
The birds have a pale breast and the underside of their wings is pale also, making them luminescent and ghostly against the night sky.
Barn Owls have white faces with dark eyes, reminiscent of a ghost face or human skull.
The vocalizations of Barn Owls include hisses and clicks, and a ghoulish drawn out shriek that is abruptly cut off.
During the daytime, the owls roost in solitary, gloomy, secluded places: abandoned barns and houses, church steeples, ruins, hollow dead trees.
Barn Owl droppings contain skeletons of rodents that they have swallowed whole.
The bird can move and turn its head in ways that seem unnatuural.

Myths and Superstitions About Barn Owls

The spooky characteristics of Barn Owls make it easy to understand why they have been feared for so long and in so many cultures. In folklore:

Barn Owls were thought to be the animal familiars of wizards and witches, and some witches were even said to ride on owls rather than broomsticks.
The cry of an owl announced that a witch was near.
Barn owls were considered harbingers of death, their cry a warning that someone was soon to die.
They were also associated with ghosts.
They cursed people and were responsible for the deaths of babies.
Some thought Barn Owls were the Devil’s companions, able to make clairvoyant predictions.
The Newuks, Native Americans, believed that evil people were reincarnated as Barn Owls when they died.

These beliefs about Barn Owls and owls in general have often been portrayed in literature and art. Poets Robert Blair and William Wordsworth referred to the “owl of doom” in their poetry. Owls often appear at macabre moments in the works of Shakespeare, and in modern times their calls or sudden appearance create suspense in horror thrillers. Recently, the Harry Potter stories by J. K. Rowling portrayed owls as messengers for the witches and wizards of Hogwarts.

The Truth About Barn Owls

In spite of its bad reputation, the Barn Owl is a good animal to have around: these birds eat numerous rodents, reducing the numbers of these pests near human communities. The loss of old dead trees and abandoned buildings in many areas, among other things, has resulted in population decline and made the Barn Owl a species of conservation concern.

Sources:

Birds in Legend Fable and Folklore. Ingersoll, Ernest. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.; 1923

“Owls in Mythology and Culture.” The Owl Pages.

Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Floyd, Ted. New York: HarperCollins; 2008.

The Parlour Menagerie. Hogg, John. London: John Hogg & Co., 1878

The copyright of the article Barn Owl – One of Our Halloween Birds in Birds is owned by Rosemary Drisdelle. Permission to republish Barn Owl – One of Our Halloween Birds in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.