Great Horned Owls enter OBBA II safe dates on December 20th, however, many individuals begin courtship by November. In addition, some early Barred Owl pairs can start to duet in late December. For those of you participating in Christmas Bird Counts (CBC), this is a great opportunity to obtain new records for owls. That said, please don't wait for a CBC to get started. With help from several regional owl coordinators, we plan to survey priority blocks lacking records of these owls from now to 31 December, and we need your help. This is our last (but not least!) push for field data collection in OBBA II, so please get in touch with us and we can direct you to a Regional Owl Coordinator. Let's put Ohio owls on the map!

A summary of the status of Great Horned and Barred Owls can be found here: http://ohiobirds.org/obba2/uploads/owls2011summary.pdf. Red text indicates the species was found in the block during the first Atlas, but has not been documented for OBBA II. These may be good blocks to target.

The map below links to information on owl coverage for each priority block within a Christmas Bird Count circle. Each linked PDF [~4 MB each] contains a map for Great Horned Owl coverage (page 1) and Barred Owl coverage (page 2). Red blocks indicate places where we NEED owl observations. This is your chance to help. Click on a CBC circle near your home to find out where you can help document owls for the Atlas.