Manhattan's Upper West Side has taken to its latest celebrities: a family of barn owls has nested in a water tower atop a building near Central Park, in what one expert calls the first documented instance of the species breeding in the borough in modern history. Nightly crowds have been gathering on the street hoping for a glimpse of the elusive birds.

"It was, like, totally shocking," Andrew Farnsworth, a migration ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said of the owls. "To the best of our knowledge, like the collective birding knowledge, there hasn't been a nest in, you know, in Manhattan, at least in recorded history."

Word of the owl family spread only last week, after neighborhood resident Elisabeth Williams notified a local news outlet on Oct. 6 that she and her husband had seen multiple owls at the water tower atop a building on West 75th Street, close to Central Park West. Days earlier, the couple had been startled to spot a single owl on their apartment windowsill.

"In a place like Manhattan, you normally really have to go out of your way to encounter nature," Williams said. "And here it was, just sort of right outside our window."

Barn owl sightings are rare in New York City

The owls are the latest wild celebrities to captivate New Yorkers. Residents have fallen for the American woodcocks that stop each year in Midtown Manhattan's Bryant Park as they migrate north in early spring. When Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl, died in 2024https://apnews.com/article/flaco-owl-memorial-central-park-zoo-escape-17e7f1aedc181d905880a73b37f8a5ae), dozens of mournful fans gathered to say goodbye to the beloved bird, who flew around Manhattan and became a joy to many after someone [let him out of his zoo enclosure the previous year. And Pale Male, a red-tailed hawk, nested above Fifth Avenue for three decades before dying in 2023.

Barn owl sightings in New York City parks, however, are very rare, according to the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. New York sits at the northern fringe of the species' range, and the barn owl population has declined "at an alarming rate" over time, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Globally, barn owls are among the most widespread owl species, found on every continent except Antarctica, and their name reflects a habit of nesting in human structures — barns, steeples, silos — that stand in for the hollow trees they use in the wild. That makes dark, enclosed structures like a rooftop water tower a natural substitute for a nest cavity, particularly for a nocturnal hunter that feeds largely on rodents.

"There's lots of excitement among New Yorkers, both birders and non-birders alike, about these owls because owls really capture the attention," said Jessica Wilson, executive director of NYC Bird Alliance. "They're magical, they're nocturnal, they are secretive, they're not commonly seen, especially on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And to have this chance to see these birds is really thrilling."

Photographers and casual onlookers have been showing up on a nightly basis to spot the birds. "I've only seen one barn owl ever, and that was in California," said Val Coleman, a retired New York City resident who was on the Upper West Side earlier this week hoping to catch a look. "At dusk, we hope they will come out to hunt. We hope they don't eat poisoned rats with rodenticide in 'em."

The rodenticide worry is not an abstract one for the city's birds of prey. When Flaco died in 2024, a necropsy found the eagle-owl had been exposed to rat poison, one of the documented hazards urban raptors face as they hunt rodents.

David Barrett, a Manhattan-based birder who runs the popular social media account Manhattan Bird Alert, said he has observed at least one adult barn owl and five fledglings at the water tower, and has seen an adult owl carrying rodents back to the nest site. There are believed to be two adult owls, and some photographers have claimed to have seen six fledglings, Barrett added. Young barn owls typically linger near the nest for several weeks after fledging while they learn to fly and hunt, giving observers time to settle the open questions about the family's size, including whether a second adult and a sixth fledgling are confirmed.

"Having one barn owl is a rarity, but it's not national news. Having a family, for the first time ever, breeding in Manhattan in recorded history, that's special news," Barrett said.

Residents heard screeching for weeks

Before the sightings made headlines, Williams and her husband had been hearing periodic screeching noises outside going back to early September. They assumed the sounds came from a bird of some kind but were skeptical when a phone app indicated the noise was from a barn owl.

Thomas Obersteiner said he first heard bizarre screeching and wailing from outside one evening in mid-September. It sounded like someone was "being murdered outside," he said.

"That lasted for two or three weeks, every night, sometimes more, sometimes less, coming from different directions," Obersteiner said. "But I had no idea what that was."

On multiple occasions, he or his wife ran into their children's bedroom after mistaking the owls' screech for a child in pain, he said. Only after seeing a news report did he realize the owls were responsible.

Farnsworth said the screech is typical of barn owls, which use it to communicate with one another. Hearing it, he said, is like a "horror movie kind of experience."

Obersteiner, whose roof deck is "probably the best location in town right now" for watching the owls, has been letting nature photographers use the perch to observe the birds "almost every night" since news of the family spread. On one night last week, 20 people had gathered.

"We can't say no because it's so much fun and these people are so serious," Obersteiner said. "It's beautiful."

Williams and her husband were not bird watchers before the barn owl family moved into the water tower. But that may soon change after their "delightful" experience.

"I think we're about to become birders," Williams said.

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Kelety reported from Phoenix.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.