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Barn owl family nests in Manhattan water tower for first time

Summarised from 2 outlets · Updated 15 Oct, 18:32 · Archive

A family of barn owls has nested in a water tower on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the first documented instance in modern history.

A family of barn owls has nested in a water tower atop a building on West 75th Street near Central Park on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the first documented instance of barn owls nesting in Manhattan in modern history. The discovery was reported on 6 October by Elisabeth Williams, an Upper West Side resident, who notified a local news outlet after spotting multiple owls at the water tower. The couple had previously seen a single owl on an apartment windowsill a few days earlier.

The barn owls have attracted nightly crowds of New Yorkers eager to get a glimpse of the elusive birds. Williams said that encountering nature in Manhattan usually requires effort. 'In a place like Manhattan, you normally really have to go out of your way to encounter nature,' she said. 'And here it was, just sort of right outside our window.'

Andrew Farnsworth, a migration ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, described the nesting as shocking. 'To the best of our knowledge, like the collective birding knowledge, there hasn't been a nest in, you know, in Manhattan, at least in recorded history,' Farnsworth said. Barn owl sightings are generally rare in New York City.

Barn owl family nests in Manhattan water tower for first time
Image: Clickorlando

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In this story: Manhattan · Central Park · Elisabeth Williams · Andrew Farnsworth · Cornell Lab of Ornithology

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