Owl Quiz: Name the Owl from Its Classic Painting

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How many kinds of owls live in North America?

Nineteen kinds of owls can be seen in the United States, Audubon counts, from the Elf Owl, the smallest owl in the world, to the Great Gray Owl, the largest in North America. A few of the nineteen, such as the Northern Hawk Owl, are only occasional visitors from the north. Twelve of them are in this quiz; the other seven sit it out, because our library has only photographs of six (the Western and Whiskered Screech-Owls, the Elf, Northern Pygmy-, Spotted and Flammulated Owls) and the Short-eared Owl's plate has a grouse in the background, which would make the question unfair. (Audubon magazine, Andrew Del-Colle)

How do you tell owls apart?

Start with size, the face and the top of the head. Ear tufts sort owls into groups: the Great Horned Owl has two big tufts, its “horns,” the Eastern Screech-Owl two small ones, and the Northern Saw-whet Owl's round head has none. The American Barn Owl's white, heart-shaped face is unlike any other North American owl's, and among the small owls only the Flammulated Owl has dark eyes, Audubon notes. (Audubon magazine, Andrew Del-Colle)

Owl trivia questions and answers

Thirteen owl trivia questions, five easy, five medium and three hard, each answered with the story behind it and the source we checked.

1. What is a group of owls called? (easy)

   Answer: A parliament. Audubon traces the name to C.S. Lewis, who described a meeting of owls in The Chronicles of Narnia. (Audubon)

2. About how far can an owl turn its head in either direction? (easy)

   Answer: Up to 270 degrees. Johns Hopkins researchers found the blood vessels under an owl's jaw swell as the head turns, pooling blood so the brain keeps its supply. (Johns Hopkins Medicine, via ScienceDaily)

3. Why do Snowy Owls keep landing at Boston's Logan Airport? (medium)

   Answer: It looks like the Arctic tundra. Its 1,800 acres of short-mowed grass look like their Arctic home, says Norman Smith, who has trapped and moved more than 900 owls away from the runways. (NPR via WWNO, Apr. 30, 2025)

4. Which owl has been the U.S. Forest Service's mascot since 1971, famous for telling children to give a hoot and not pollute? (easy)

   Answer: Woodsy Owl. The USDA Forest Service officially introduced Woodsy Owl on Sept. 15, 1971, as a mentor and inspiration for children. His motto, give a hoot, don't pollute, is what he is most famous for. (USDA Forest Service, Inside the FS, 15 Sep 2021)

5. Which small owl can give a hiss that sounds like a rattlesnake? (easy)

   Answer: The Burrowing Owl. Its long, rattling hiss may have evolved to mimic a cornered rattlesnake and warn visitors away from its nest burrow. In one experiment, ground squirrels were nearly as alarmed by the hiss as by a real rattlesnake. (Audubon magazine, by BirdNote, written by Bob Sundstrom, 31 Aug 2015)

6. Can an owl roll its eyes? (easy)

   Answer: No: its eyes can't move in their sockets. An owl's eyes aren't true eyeballs. They are tube-shaped and completely immobile, which gives sharp binocular vision and depth perception, Audubon says. (Audubon magazine, National Audubon Society, 15 Oct 2015)

7. How did the Northern Saw-whet Owl get its odd name? (medium)

   Answer: Its call sounds like a saw being sharpened on a whetstone. Not all owls hoot, Audubon notes: Barn Owls hiss, the Eastern Screech-Owl whinnies like a horse, and the saw-whet sounds like an old whetstone sharpening a saw. Hence the name. (Audubon magazine, National Audubon Society, 15 Oct 2015)

8. Many owls have one ear opening higher on the head than the other. Why? (medium)

   Answer: To pinpoint where a sound comes from. With ears at different heights, an owl can locate a sound up and down as well as left and right, Audubon says: ready, aim, strike. (Audubon magazine, National Audubon Society, 15 Oct 2015)

9. Ancient Athens' silver coins showed the goddess Athena on one side. What did people call the coins, after the bird on the other side? (medium)

   Answer: “Owls”. Athenian “Owls” carried Athena's helmeted head on the front and an owl on the back. First struck at the end of the sixth century BC, they served as an international currency, says the Australian National University's Classics Museum. (Australian National University Classics Museum, entry by Hugh Preston)

10. In June 1990 one owl was listed as a threatened species and put on the cover of Time magazine, at the heart of a fight over logging. Which owl? (medium)

    Answer: The Northern Spotted Owl. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed it as threatened in June 1990, and Time put it on its cover on June 25, 1990. The fight over old-growth timber ended up shaping the Northwest Forest Plan, the Oregon Encyclopedia says. (The Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon Historical Society and Portland State University, Janice Reid, last updated 2 Jan 2023)

11. To quiet Japan's 500 Series bullet train, engineers copied the edges of which bird's feathers onto the part that touches the overhead wires? (hard)

    Answer: An owl's. Engineer Eiji Nakatsu, a member of the Wild Bird Society of Japan, learned that owls are the most silent fliers. His team copied the tiny saw-tooth edges of owl wing feathers onto the pantograph, enough to meet the world's strictest noise standards. (Japan for Sustainability, JFS Newsletter No. 31, 31 Mar 2005)

12. The tiny Northern Saw-whet Owl can cross big stretches of water. How far from shore was one found near Montauk, New York? (hard)

    Answer: About 70 miles. Northern Saw-whet Owls can travel long distances over large bodies of water, Audubon says; one showed up 70 miles from shore near Montauk, New York. (Audubon magazine, National Audubon Society, 15 Oct 2015)

13. An owl has two toes pointing forward and two back. What trick can it do with them that most such birds can't? (hard)

    Answer: Swing one back toe forward. Owls are zygodactyl: two toes face forward and two back. Unlike most such birds, an owl can pivot one back toe forward to help it grip and walk, Audubon says. (Audubon magazine, National Audubon Society, 15 Oct 2015)

For 89 more, on every kind of bird, see our bird trivia questions and answers, ranked easy to hard and printable.