Head to head
Great Horned Owl vs Barn Owl
Both are common owls across much of North America, but they belong to different families and hunt in different ways. The great horned owl is a heavy, powerful bird with feather tufts on its head, big yellow eyes, and a deep hoot, and it will eat almost anything up to the size of a skunk or another owl. The barn owl is lighter, pale gold and white, with a heart-shaped face, dark eyes, no tufts, and a harsh scream instead of a hoot, and it lives almost entirely on small rodents.
| Great Horned Owl | Barn Owl | |
|---|---|---|
| Family | Typical owls (Strigidae) | Barn owls (Tytonidae) |
| Weight | 1 to 1.6 kg; females larger | 0.4 to 0.7 kg |
| Face and eyes | Ear tufts; large yellow eyes | Heart-shaped facial disc; small dark eyes |
| Voice | Deep, soft hoots in a rhythmic series | A long, harsh, raspy screech |
| Diet | Extremely broad: mammals, birds, reptiles, other raptors | Almost entirely voles, mice, shrews, and rats |
| Hunting method | Watches from a perch, then a powerful drop | Quarters low over open ground, locating prey by sound |
| Nesting | Takes over old hawk, heron, or squirrel nests; very early | Cavities, barns, cliffs, and nest boxes |
| Conservation status | Least Concern | Least Concern globally; declining in parts of the north |
Great Horned Owl vs Barn Owl: common questions
Do great horned owls really attack other owls?
Yes. The great horned owl is the dominant nocturnal predator across most of its range and treats other owls as competitors and as food. It regularly kills eastern screech-owls, long-eared owls, barn owls, and the young of larger species, and it will drive nesting owls and hawks off a territory or simply move into their old stick nests. This is one reason barn owls and smaller owls tend to be scarce or highly cautious wherever great horned owls are common, and why some are more active at dusk and dawn rather than the middle of the night.
How does a barn owl hunt in complete darkness?
Its face is a sound-collecting dish. The stiff feathers of the heart-shaped disc funnel faint noises toward the ears, and the two ear openings are set at slightly different heights, so a sound from a mouse arrives at each ear at a marginally different time and loudness. The owl's brain turns that difference into a precise fix on the prey in both the horizontal and vertical planes. In laboratory tests barn owls can strike a moving target in a room with no light at all, guided entirely by rustling. Silent flight, from soft-edged wing feathers, lets it hear the prey over its own wingbeats.
Which one is in my barn or backyard?
If you hear a steady, mellow series of hoots at night, or see a large owl with obvious ear tufts sitting upright on a bare branch at dusk, that is a great horned owl. If something pale flies up from the rafters or a hayloft, looks almost white underneath, has a round pale face with no tufts, and makes a drawn-out hissing scream, that is a barn owl. Barn owls strongly favour buildings and nest boxes and open hunting ground; great horned owls prefer woodland edges and tall trees but turn up almost everywhere, including cities.