BirdBrain Academy

Owls · Strigidae

Barred Owl sounds

Strix varia

The Barred Owl is a large North American owl of mature forests, brown to gray with dark striping below.

Learn bird sounds freeMore Barred Owl recordings
Barred Owl
Photo: Mdf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Listen to the Barred Owl

Each recording below is a short excerpt with its spectrogram, a picture of the sound. Time runs left to right and higher pitches sit higher up. Play each one, then look for the same shape in the next. Different recordings of the same bird help you learn the bird, not one clip.

Duet · recording 1 Spectrogram of a Barred Owl duet: time runs left to right and pitch rises upward

Recorded by steve, Chapel Hill, Orange County, North Carolina, 2024-01-30. XC864701 on xeno-canto, CC BY-SA 4.0. Five-second excerpt.

Call · recording 2 Spectrogram of a Barred Owl call: time runs left to right and pitch rises upward

Recorded by Rob Porter, Hayesland Swamp Nature Sanctuary, 2019-02-15. XC457078 on xeno-canto, CC BY-SA 4.0. Five-second excerpt.

Duet · recording 3 Spectrogram of a Barred Owl duet: time runs left to right and pitch rises upward

Recorded by steve, Chapel Hill, Orange County, North Carolina, 2024-01-30. XC864701 on xeno-canto, CC BY-SA 4.0. Five-second excerpt.

What to listen for

The Barred Owl is a powerful vocalist, with calls described as loud and emphatic and able to carry well over 0.8 km. Its usual call is an eight-hoot, two-phrase pattern with a downward pitch at the end.

Many listeners write its call as “ok-ok-ok-ok ok-ok-buhooh”. Treat a written sound as a memory aid; individual birds and regions vary.

A common memory phrase is “Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all.”.

When you are most likely to hear it: Most common at night, peaking between 6:00 pm and 6:00 am; seasonal peaks run from late January in Florida to early April in Canada..

What it looks like

The Barred Owl is grayish-brown or brown, with white bars on the back, horizontal barring on the upper chest, and bold vertical streaking on the belly. It has a large rounded head without ear tufts, a pale grayish-brown facial disc, dark brown eyes, and a pale straw-yellow bill.

Where to find it

It lives across much of the eastern United States and southern Canada, with expanded western populations, favoring old deciduous, mixed, and sometimes coniferous forests. It is largely nocturnal, often roosting by day in dense foliage, and is territorial year-round.

BirdBrain regions that include this bird

  • California
  • Caribbean
  • Central Africa
  • East Asia
  • Eastern Africa
  • Eastern Canada
  • Eastern South America
  • Florida
  • Great Lakes
  • Melanesia
  • Mexico
  • Mid-Atlantic
  • New England
  • Northwest
  • Plains
  • Polynesia
  • Rocky Mountains
  • South Asia
  • Southeast
  • Southeast Asia Mainland
  • Southern Africa
  • Texas
  • Western Africa
  • Western Canada

Did you know?

  • The Barred Owl is sometimes colloquially called Old Eight-Hooter because of its best-known call.
  • Its westward expansion has brought it into the range of the threatened spotted owl.
  • It is a skilled, silent flier and often uses routine forest flyways with open understory.

Learn the Barred Owl by ear

BirdBrain Academy teaches bird sounds with side-by-side listening and quizzes that use different recordings, so you learn the bird rather than one clip. Start with six free lessons, no signup needed. On your phone, Sound ID can name the birds singing around you.

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Related birds

Species notes are adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and checked for BirdBrain. Recordings come from xeno-canto under the licenses shown with each one. Photo: Mdf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Identification guidance is educational; birds vary, so confirm unusual sightings with local experts or eBird.