Barn owl family on a Manhattan water tower is turning dusk on the Upper West Side into a nightly event

A water tower near Central Park has become one of Manhattan's most unexpected attractions after a family of barn owls moved in. People have been gathering at dusk on the Upper West Side for a chance to see birds that experts say could mark the first documented barn owl nest in Manhattan in recorded history.

A nest almost nobody expected

The owls are living in a water tower on top of a building on West 75th Street near Central Park West, and the discovery quickly turned into a local fascination. According to migration ecologist Andrew Farnsworth of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the nest appears to be something Manhattan birders have not recorded before. He said that, as far as the collective birding knowledge goes, there has not been a barn owl nest in Manhattan in recorded history.

The sighting only became widely known last week, after Upper West Side resident Elisabeth Williams contacted a local news outlet on Oct. 6 to say she and her husband had seen multiple owls at the tower. The couple had already spotted a single owl on an apartment windowsill a few days earlier and were surprised even by that. Williams said the experience felt especially striking in Manhattan, where coming across wildlife usually takes effort rather than happening outside your own window.

Williams and her husband were not bird-watchers before the owls appeared. After seeing the family settle in above their neighborhood, she said that might be changing.

The strange nighttime noise had people guessing

The birds were not completely unnoticed before people began looking up at the tower. Residents had been hearing odd noises for weeks without knowing what was causing them.

Williams said she and her husband had heard periodic screeching outside since early September. Thomas Obersteiner said he first noticed bizarre screeching and wailing one evening in mid-September, and that it continued nightly for two or three weeks, sometimes louder, sometimes quieter, and seeming to come from different directions.

He said the sound was so unsettling that he and his wife more than once rushed into their children's bedroom after mistaking it for a child in pain. It was only after he saw coverage of the owls that he realized what he had been hearing.

Farnsworth said that kind of screech is normal for barn owls and is part of how they communicate with each other. He described it as the sort of sound that can feel like something out of a horror film.

How many owls are in the tower?

Part of the excitement comes from the fact that this is not just a single rare bird passing through. Manhattan birder David Barrett, who runs the social media account Manhattan Bird Alert, said he has seen at least one adult barn owl and five fledglings at the water tower. He also said he has watched an adult carrying rodents back to the nest.

Barrett said there are believed to be two adult owls. Some photographers, he added, think they may have seen six fledglings, which means the exact number of young birds is not fully settled.

That possibility of a full family has helped draw people into the street night after night. Photographers and casual onlookers have been gathering in hopes of seeing the owls emerge around dusk to hunt. One retired New York City resident, Val Coleman, said she had only seen a barn owl once before, in California, and now was waiting with everyone else to see whether the birds would come out.

Coleman also pointed to a concern that often follows urban raptors: whether they might eat rats that have been poisoned with rodenticide.

Why New Yorkers are so invested

Owls already have a special hold on city residents, and bird experts say that helps explain the response. Jessica Wilson, executive director of NYC Bird Alliance, said owls attract attention from both birders and people who do not usually follow birds because they are nocturnal, secretive and not commonly seen. She said that is especially true on the Upper West Side, making this chance to watch them feel unusual and exciting.

The rarity matters too. The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation says barn owl sightings in city parks are very uncommon. The state Department of Environmental Conservation says New York sits at the northern edge of the species' range and that the population has declined at an alarming rate over time.

New Yorkers have rallied around birds before. American woodcocks return to Bryant Park during their northward migration in early spring, and after Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl, died in 2024, mourners gathered to mark the loss of a bird that had become a familiar and beloved sight in Manhattan after being released from his zoo enclosure the year before.

This time, the focus is on a water tower and the chance to witness something many people in the city have never seen at all. Obersteiner, whose roof deck overlooks the area, has been allowing nature photographers onto it almost every night since word spread. He said around 20 people gathered there on one night last week. Rather than turning them away, he has kept opening the space because he finds the whole thing enjoyable and is struck by how dedicated the visitors are.

For a neighborhood used to looking at skylines, windows and rooftops, the latest star attraction is a family of owls hiding in plain sight.