Rare 'rufous' Eastern Screech Owl photographed near Lake Travis by KXAN viewer

TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) -- Did you know that the Eastern Screech Owl is Travis County Audubon's bird of 2025?

KXAN viewer Andrew Levihn-Coon recently sent KXAN several of pictures of the owls, which he photographed last month.

The birds that Levihn-Coon photographed were a mated pair near their nest, he said. One of the owls had a rare reddish-brown, or rufous, coloration. Typically, Eastern Screech Owls in Central Texas adapted a grey coloration for better camouflage with the region's trees.

"So I was photographing them, that it was actually kind of a week later that baby fledged and left. So they were there for about a month," Levihn-Coon said. "The male would kind of watch the nest all day, so he often is super camouflage, and would sit on the branch about 10 to 15 away, feet away from the nest, always with a line of sight to kind of watch over the nest."

He spotted the birds at near the Tom Hughes Park at Lake Travis. Typically, the birds nest between March and mid-June, with some nesting until July, according to the Cornell Lab's website.

"Generally, springtime is one of the best times to see owls, spring and early summer, because the parents are nesting, so they're together and they're kind of staying in the same spot," Levihn-Coon said. "It can be really hard to find owls by sight, because they're so camouflaged and often not that active during the day. So the best time to find them is generally kind of dawn, and dusk is when they're most active."

Travis Audubon Lifetime Member Shelia Hargis said that the Eastern Screech Owl is one of six owl species that lives in Central Texas, and the smallest one.

"It's a very small owl. It's common in neighborhoods, living next to people ... you can put up a nest box and sometimes you'll get an owl roosting there, like maybe over the winter," she said. "There may be one that's roosting there, but if you get really lucky, then you could potentially have a pair that decide to raise their young in that nest box."

How to help Travis County's 'bird of the year'

2025 is the first year that Travis Audubon has chosen a bird of the year. According to the chapter's website, around 400 people voted in a poll and "overwhelmingly" picked the Eastern Screech Owl.

“This little owl has, so far, been able to adapt to urban areas pretty well," said a Travis Audubon member, according to the January announcement. "With more folks moving to Texas everyday and the increase in development of rural areas, this little bird would be a great ambassador for bird education and the importance of conservation as well as how the things you do in your backyard affect not only birds, but all wildlife."

“The Eastern Screech Owl excels in both appeal and accessibility. Most people in Central Texas will hear Screech Owls at night wherever they live, and the owls readily move into owl houses where they can be both heard and seen," said another member.

According to Hargis, the biggest threats to Central Texas' owls are pesticides, as well as noise and light pollution. The activities of county residents particularly impact a species like the Eastern Screech Owl, which lives closer to developed areas than our other owls.

"A huge risk for these birds are pesticides or poisons for either insects or rodents, or whatever they're eating. If those animals have been poisoned, then they may still be alive. If the owl ingest those, it can either kill the owl, in some cases, or at least make it sick, which is not a good thing when you're out in the wild," she said.

Light and sound pollution can disorient owls and cause them to overexert themselves. Owls use the stars to navigate -- excess light at night makes it harder to see the stars, which can make them lost.

"If you have a lighted area that might be attracting insects, which would potentially help the owls, but it also might be just throwing their vision off. Their vision has evolved to to work really well in dark," Hargis said.