Classic bird paintings

Great Horned Owl painting: Audubon's plate and other classic portraits

John James Audubon painted the Great Horned Owl as plate 61 of The Birds of America (1827–38), a male and a female, under the same name. A free high-resolution scan is on Audubon.org. The owl shown here was painted by Louis Agassiz Fuertes for Elon H. Eaton's Birds of New York (1910–14), plate 57.

Updated

A Great Horned Owl with tall ear tufts, an orange face and yellow eyes gripping a gray stump with its pale feathered feet
Great Horned Owl, signed by Fuertes, from Birds of New York, plate 57. Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Elon H. Eaton's Birds of New York (1910–14)

About this painting

Fuertes signed his name in full across the stump. The plate is number 57 of Elon H. Eaton's Birds of New York (1910–14), and the New York State Museum, which published the book, is named at its head. Its caption calls the owl Bubo virginianus virginianus. More in our guide to Louis Agassiz Fuertes.

Audubon’s Great Horned Owl: plate 61, “Great Horned Owl”

Audubon's plate shows a male and a female. He described the owl's usual “hoo, hoo, hoo-e,” given in so low a tone that someone who didn't know it might think the owl was more than a mile away, and its other cries, from something like a dog's bark to a horrid shriek.

Once, running to pick up an owl he had shot on a willow bar, he sank in quicksand up to his armpits. His boatmen saved him by building a bridge of oars and driftwood while he kept perfectly still. He told the story, he wrote, to show the hardships every student of nature meets, and added that if he could live his life again, he would spend it no other way.

Story: Audubon’s Ornithological Biography, vol. 1 (1831). See plate 61 free at Audubon.org.

More classic portraits, free to see

  • John James Audubon, The Birds of America, octavo edition (1840–44), plate 39: “Great Horned-Owl”. Free scan (New York Public Library Digital Collections)
  • Louis Agassiz Fuertes, for Elon H. Eaton’s Birds of New York (1910–14), plate 57: “Great Horned Owl” (the painting shown above). Free scan (Internet Archive)

About the Great Horned Owl

  • Great Horned Owls usually hunt at night, watching from a perch and then swooping down onto their prey. (Source: National Audubon Society)

The oldest known wild Great Horned Owl lived at least 28 years and 10 months: it was banded in Ohio in 1997 and found there again in 2025. That is a record from bird banding, not a typical lifespan. (Source: USGS Bird Banding Laboratory, 2025 longevity table.) How long do wild birds live?

Buying a print?

An original plate 61 is a hand-colored sheet about 26 by 38 inches, printed in Britain in 1827–38; many prints sold today are reproductions or small 1840s octavo prints. How to tell an original from a reproduction.

In a Birdfolio, the hardcover book of your own life list, this painting sits beside the Great Horned Owl with the date and place you first saw one. See your own list as a book, free.