Dear birdwatchers, it’s ‘leave the owls alone’ season | Canada Voices

For many photographers and nature buffs, owls are photogenic birds that are the ultimate winter catch when it comes to social media snaps and videos.

“Owls have a piercing gaze. It’s like they’re perceiving you as you’re perceiving them,” says Jon Ruddy, owner of Eastern Ontario Birding.

“Their gaze – whether it’s a small saw-whet owl or a big snowy owl – has a captivating quality. When they look at the observer, it’s a heart-stopping moment.”

The Embrun, Ont.-based field guide says birders frequently reach out to him in the hopes of seeing northern hawk owls and great grey owls, rare but occasional winter finds in Southern Canada, from coast to coast. Owl season hits its peak during November through March, because of migration patterns and breeding season.

Though appealing, owling is not without ethical concerns as photographers chase the elusive creatures. The quest for photos brings carloads of bird paparazzi to “celebrity owls,” whose location becomes common knowledge through social media.

In recent winters, celeb owls at Toronto’s Downsview and Guild parks were besieged by photographers. In winter 2021, Guild Park closed off an area of its grounds after people repeatedly played owl calls, shook trees, threw snow and damaged shrubs in their quest for photos of an eastern screech-owl.

Harassing owls for the perfect photo

Anthony Kaduck, a long-time birder, has seen first-hand the impact visitors have made on one legendary owl hotspot in Southern Ontario. To protect its owl population, The Globe and Mail isn’t naming the location.

“Long-eared owls haven’t been seen there in years, and that’s because it became very popular with too many people. Long-ears are very sensitive to disturbance, so they have basically moved out,” says Kaduck, who is the field-trips co-ordinator for the Kingston Field Naturalists, a local conservation group.

Owl chasing can have tragic effects on wildlife, says Dave McRuer, a field biologist and wildlife veterinarian based in Charlottetown, PEI. Camera flashes can temporarily blind owls, causing collisions with trees, walls or motor vehicles.

Playing recorded owl calls to lure owls into view also disturbs their normal behaviour. At best, they lose much-needed sleep. At worst, they may leave the safety of their roost to investigate the callbacks, exposing them to predators such as hawks and larger owls. Owls who have been “flushed” from their roosts can also be mobbed by groups of blue jays or crows, which then chase them, sometimes for hours, causing the owls tremendous stress.

Dr. McRuer says one of the most egregious things you can do as a birdwatcher is to bait owls with food to coerce action shots. Supermarket chicken and pet-store mice are less nutritionally dense than a natural diet, and baiting can also lead to dependency.

“Raptors can become accustomed to getting fed that way, and if one day, the food doesn’t appear, they may not have the same ability to find natural food,” says Dr. McRuer. This is especially hazardous for juvenile owls, who build hunting skills over their first winter.

Snowy owls under threat

This winter is shaping up to be a snowy owl irruption year: a season where an Arctic snowy owl population boom was followed by a population bust of their primary food source, lemmings. This has forced large numbers of young, inexperienced birds to travel south in search of food.

With a first-year mortality rate of approximately 80 per cent, snowies face tough odds due to habitat loss, vehicle collisions, electrocution by power lines, and secondary poisoning through urban and agricultural rodenticide. Running the gauntlet of camera-toting humans can tip these already unfavourable odds fully against them.

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Dr. McRuer describes a scenario where a hungry young snowy owl – which has flown hundreds of kilometres from its Arctic home to Southern Ontario, Manitoba or Quebec – attempts to hunt field mice as humans edge closer to photograph it. Idling cars, slamming doors, talking voices and crunching footsteps divert its attention and distract it from the sound of its prey moving beneath the snow.

“Let’s say it misses that first mouse – now it has a little bit less energy to go after the second one. And if it misses the second one and the next, it becomes a downward spiral.” Poor hunting outcomes, says Dr. McRuer, are why “a lot of juvenile raptors never make it past their first year.”

This can have a significant impact on vulnerable species such as snowy owls, which in May, 2025, were designated threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

Ethical owl basics

So, what is an owl lover to do? Opt for ethical owling, says Melissa Hafting, Vancouver-based author of Dare to Bird and founder of the BC Young Birders Program.

For starters, avoid participating in photo workshops that guarantee owls – that’s a surefire sign of baiting, says Hafting. “Check their websites: if they have photos of owls coming toward you, talons outstretched, they’re probably coming in for a pet-store mouse. If they have multiple shots of snowy owls, hawk owls and great grey owls, those were probably baited, too.” She urges people to e-mail such companies and ask if they use bait to attract owls. “Do your due diligence,” Hafting says.

She recommends visiting a wildlife centre with “ambassador” owls instead. These are human-raised birds, habituated to interaction through positive reinforcement, says Sandra Davey, animal care and program co-ordinator at the Mountsberg Raptor Centre in Campbellville, ON. The centre offers Discover Owls educational experiences during Conservation Halton’s Winterlit festival (select dates through January).

Bonus: You’re likely to get photos of relaxed birds there, not the wide-eyed, surprised or defensive “mantling” (wings out and forward) behaviours displayed by stressed-out owls.

Or simply do your research, bring your binoculars and stroll your community. Local owls can be found in cities, suburbs and rural areas across Canada. “A field guide will tell you all you need to know to get started: the habits of a specific owl species, the times of the day it hunts and their proper habitat,” says Hafting. Consider checking out the Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean.

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Success? Have your moment, snap a quick photo and then leave. Don’t post the bird’s location on social media, including citizen-science apps such as eBird. You could, however, use the web version of the app to privately share your checklist with Cornell Lab of Ornithology researchers, who started the project.

Let the owl fly under the radar, says Mountsberg’s Davey. “Don’t tell anybody where you found the owl, otherwise it could become a celebrity everyone wants to photograph.”

The bottom line: Give owls a break

When it comes to winter birding beyond these popular raptors, this season is stellar, says Jody Allair, communications director of conservation group Birds Canada.

Looking for camera fodder? Think winter finches. “Evening grosbeaks and pine grosbeaks are ridiculously beautiful birds. Like, almost offensively beautiful with their striking colours,” says Allair, who is based in Drumheller, Alta.

“Finch irruptions happen periodically and this is one of those years,” he says, adding that large numbers of the birds are leaving their boreal breeding grounds in search of seeds and berries in Southern Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes and the Prairies. Arctic dwellers such as common redpolls have also made their way down in significant numbers.

Another type of bird to watch this season is waterfowl. “If you have access to open water like the Great Lakes or the East or West coasts, one of the great things to do in winter time is check out the high concentrations of overwintering waterfowl. They vary depending on where in the country you are, but many are visible in massive numbers, right into the thousands,” says Allair. This includes Arctic seabirds such as surf scoters, long-tailed ducks, scaup and the common eider, North America’s largest duck.

Finally, setting up a bird feeder and suet blocks (and longer-term, planting native plants, shrubs and berry bushes) will attract northern cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, nuthatches, downy and hairy woodpeckers, dark-eyed juncos and other photogenic species.

You can share your backyard finds with researchers via Birds Canada’s Project FeederWatch. This data collection project helps scientists and conservationists measure the number and range of bird species across North America. It runs through April, just in time for another birding bonanza: spring migration.