beakThe hard, hooked mouthpart of an owl. It is short, curved and points downward, which keeps the owl's view clear. Another word for beak is bill.
facial discThe frame of feathers that rings an owl's face. It gathers sound waves and steers them toward the owl's ears. The barn owl's disc is the most striking, and the great grey owl's is the largest of any bird.
hootThe call that owls are known for. The great horned owl is also known as the hoot owl.
nocturnalUp and about after dark, asleep by day. Most owls hunt in darkness. Many night animals have eyes that are large for the size of their bodies, to make the most of dim light.
owlA night bird whose two big eyes both face forward. There are more than 200 kinds of owl. They live all over the world, though not on the polar ice caps or on some remote islands.
owletAn owl chick, not yet grown up. The same word is the name of several small kinds of owl.
Show all 36 terms (30 more)
Owl basics, continued
pelletA lump of fur and bones that an owl coughs up. Owls often swallow small prey whole. What they cannot digest is packed into a pellet within 6 to 10 hours of a meal.
predatorA hunter: it eats what it can catch. Small mammals, insects and other birds make up most of what owls hunt. A few kinds specialize in catching fish.
preyThe creature a hunter is trying to catch. A great horned owl's prey is mainly rabbits and hares, rats, mice and voles. It is one of the few animals that regularly hunt skunks.
raptorA meat-eating bird that seizes animals in its feet. The word comes from the Latin rapio, to seize or take by force. Raptors are also called birds of prey.
roostThe spot where a bird settles down to sleep. Pellets collect under the places where owls roost and nest: under conifer trees for most owls, in barns and silos for barn owls.
talonA sharp, hooked claw on a hunting bird's foot. An owl seizes its prey with its talons. They are made of keratin, a hard protein.
Body, senses and pellets 12
binocular visionSight with both eyes facing the same way. Because its eyes face forward, an owl is good at judging how far away its prey is. The eyes are not round balls but long tubes.
camouflageMarkings that hide an animal in plain sight. An owl's feathers tend to copy the colors, and sometimes the texture, of its surroundings. The snowy owl is white like the snow around it.
dissectionOpening something up carefully to study its insides. Classes dissect owl pellets to find the bones of the animals an owl ate. Scientists study pellets too, to learn what a bird eats without harming it.
ear tuftA feather tuft on an owl's head, not an ear at all. The horns of a great horned owl are ear tufts. An owl's real ears are on the sides of its head.
gizzardThe muscular stomach where a bird's food is crushed. An owl's pellet takes shape in its gizzard. In many other animals the gizzard grinds up food, often with the help of swallowed stones or grit.
hearingThe sense an owl uses to find a mouse it cannot see. A barn owl hunting in complete darkness relies on its hearing. No animal tested has been better at finding prey by sound.
night visionThe power to see when there is very little light. An owl's far sight in dim light is exceptionally good. Up close it is another story: owls are farsighted and cannot see clearly anything a few centimeters from their eyes.
regurgitateTo bring swallowed food back up through the mouth. Many animals regurgitate food to feed their young. For an owl it is also how a pellet leaves the body.
silent flightFlying so quietly that prey hears nothing coming. A stiff fringe like a comb on the front edge of the outer wing feathers, and a velvety surface on the flight feathers, soften the sound of the air.
third eyelidA thin extra eyelid an owl can still see through. Its scientific name is the nictitating membrane, from the Latin for to blink. It protects and moistens the eye while the animal can still see.
wingspanHow far a bird measures across its spread wings. An elf owl's wingspan is about 27 centimeters (10.5 inches). A great horned owl's can reach 153 centimeters (5 feet).
zygodactyl footA foot with two toes pointing forward and two back. Owls are among the birds with feet like this, along with parrots, woodpeckers and cuckoos.
Kinds of owl and their lives 12
barn owlThe kind of owl found in the most parts of the world. Barn owls have large heads and heart-shaped faces. They have been brought to some ocean islands to keep down rodent pests.
burrowing owlA ground-dwelling owl that lives in old animal holes. It seldom digs its own home and moves into burrows left by prairie dogs, ground squirrels or badgers. When threatened, it retreats inside and makes rattling, hissing sounds like a rattlesnake.
clutchOne batch of eggs, laid in the same nest. A snowy owl's clutch is very large, often 5 to 11 eggs. They are laid, and they hatch, at staggered times.
crepuscularActive mainly in the half-light of dawn and dusk. Several kinds of owl are crepuscular, the pygmy owls among them. Burrowing owls do most of their hunting at sunrise and sunset.
diurnalActive in daylight and resting at night. The northern hawk-owl is one of the few diurnal owls. The burrowing owl is often out by day too.
great horned owlA big owl of the Americas, also called the tiger owl. No other true owl is spread so widely across the Americas. It nests very early in the year: its eggs are often laid weeks, even months, ahead of those of other birds of prey.
habitatThe type of surroundings a creature belongs in. Different owls live in forests, grasslands, deserts and on the tundra. The tiny elf owl often nests in old woodpecker holes in saguaro cactus.
incubationThe weeks a parent bird spends warming its eggs. In some kinds of owl the female stays at the nest with the eggs while the male brings back food.
mobbingPrey animals ganging up to harass a hunter. Mobbing draws attention to the predator, so it can no longer attack by surprise. It is seen most often in birds.
rodentA mouse, rat, vole or other gnawing mammal. Rodents make up about 40 percent of all kinds of mammal. Their front teeth never stop growing.
snowy owlThe owl that is mostly white, like its snowy home. It breeds on the Arctic tundra and is often active by day, especially in summer. Its favorite prey is the lemming.
territoryA patch an animal guards and drives rivals out of. Animals defend a territory to protect their food, mates and nesting sites. An area that an animal uses but does not defend is called its home range.
How this list was compiled: Term list chosen for this site on 2026-10-12. Each meaning is written in our own words and was checked that day against the article on the term in the English Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/), whose text is under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: Owl, Bird of prey, Nocturnal animal, Predation, Claw, Beak, Facial disc, Pellet (ornithology), Flight feather, Wingspan, Binocular vision, Night vision, Camouflage, Nictitating membrane, Dactyly, Regurgitation (digestion), Gizzard, Dissection, Barn owl, Tytonidae, Snowy owl, Great horned owl, Burrowing owl, Elf owl, Blakiston's fish owl, Habitat, Territory (animal), Clutch (eggs), Egg incubation, Rodent, Diurnality, Crepuscular animal and Mobbing (animal behavior). Owlet, hoot, roost, talon, raptor, ear tuft, regurgitate, incubation, mobbing and parliament were also read in Wiktionary, the free dictionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/). Prey swallowed whole, pellets, the comb-like fringe of the wing feathers, the feet and the facial disc were checked a second time against the Animal Diversity Web of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology (https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Strigiformes/); the barn owl's hearing and its release on ocean islands against the same site (https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Tyto_alba/), which is also the source of the elf owl's nest holes (https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Micrathene_whitneyi/); the great horned owl's feather tufts and its hunting of skunks, and the burrowing owl's borrowed burrows, against the Wildlife Guide of the National Wildlife Federation (https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Birds/Great-Horned-Owl and .../Birds/Burrowing-Owl); the snowy owl and its lemmings against National Geographic Kids (https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/facts/snowy-owl); the 270 degrees of an owl's neck against National Geographic (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/facts/owls); the tube-shaped eyes against BBC Bitesize (https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zv24ywx, Do owls have eyeballs?). The sources differ on the number of kinds of owl (Wikipedia: over 200; National Geographic: at least 250), so the list says more than 200, and on the feet (the Animal Diversity Web gives zygodactyl feet to the whole order; Wikipedia's Dactyly says some owls), so the list says owls are among the birds that have them. The fact after each meaning is from the same pages. Licence: own work
How it works
This owl vocabulary worksheet prints owl, raptor, nocturnal, predator, prey, talon, beak, facial disc, pellet, roost, owlet and hoot down the left, with their meanings in another order down the right. The last page is the answer key.
Read the full guide
Body, senses and pellets
Set opens on Owl basics. The second set, for a class that takes owl pellets apart, has silent flight, wingspan, ear tuft, binocular vision, night vision, hearing, camouflage, third eyelid, zygodactyl foot, regurgitate, gizzard and dissection.
Kinds of owl and their lives
The third set has barn owl, snowy owl, great horned owl, burrowing owl, habitat, territory, clutch, incubation, rodent, diurnal, crepuscular and mobbing.
Screech, barred, elf, tawny and eagle owls are on the bird word search, with the hawks, eagles and falcons.
Questions and answers
What is a group of owls called?
A parliament. The word is seldom needed, because most owls live alone. The burrowing owl is one of the few that keep company.
Can owls turn their heads all the way around?
No. An owl can turn its head as far as 270 degrees, three quarters of a circle. It has 14 neck bones, twice as many as a person, and its eyes are fixed in their sockets, so it turns its head to look sideways.
What is the smallest owl?
The elf owl of the southwestern United States and Mexico. It is about the size of a sparrow, some 13.5 centimeters long, and can weigh as little as 31 grams. The largest owls include Blakiston's fish owl of China, Japan and the Russian Far East.