Potty Owl: The Great Horned Owl That Nested in a Flower Pot

2 hours ago
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Great Horned Owl sitting inside a plastic flower pot on walkway outside house

It sounds made up, it sounds ridiculous...

This spring, a female Great Horned Owl made one of the strangest nesting choices the Owl Research Institute has ever documented — a plastic flower pot beside the front door of a modern Montana home.

No towering cottonwood, no abandoned hawk nest 40 feet high, no creepy snag deep in the forest... she chose a flower pot.

In mid-March, a Montana real estate agent arrived at a home listed for sale and discovered the owl incubating three eggs in a large planter sitting directly below a picture window. The pot rested on a concrete walkway near the home’s entrance, exposed and shockingly vulnerable.

Coyotes roam the area. Red foxes hunt nearby. Free-roaming dogs and outdoor cats are very common.

And yet there she sat; calm, determined, and very committed.

The homeowners, who were away for the winter, were immediately contacted. Along with the realtor, who is a former employee of the Owl Research Institute, and they made a remarkable decision: let the owls try.

Shortly afterward, the house went under contract.

Now came the next question: would the new owners allow a family of Great Horned Owls to continue nesting two feet off the ground beside their future front door?

Thankfully, they agreed.

This unlikely mother quickly earned a nickname: “Potty Owl.”

The nest itself was nothing more than a two-foot-wide plastic planter filled with potting soil and equipped with a vertical drip irrigation tube. Somehow, this became the chosen nursery for one of North America’s most formidable predators.

Why would a Great Horned Owl choose such a bizarre site?

The answer may be simpler than expected. Most owls do not build nests themselves. Instead, they rely on abandoned nests made by hawks, ravens, squirrels, or natural cavities. In this area, suitable nesting sites were scarce. Only one medium-sized evergreen stood near the home, and it contained no old nests. Still, the tree provided an excellent daytime roost for the male owl, who remained close by throughout the nesting attempt.

But even with limited options, this choice was extraordinary.

Great Horned Owls in this region typically nest 30–50 feet high in old Red-tailed Hawk nests. Potty Owl instead chose ground level and the odds were not in her favor.

Then came the first breakthrough.

On April 15, the realtor noticed one of the eggs had “pipped,” the first tiny crack created by the owlet inside. Using a temporary sharp, white “egg tooth” on the tip of its bill, the developing chick had begun hammering its way into the world. For days, the chick pushed and chipped from inside the shell before finally breaking free. Within days, a second chick emerged. Then a third.

By April 20, all three owlets were huddled together beneath their mother, looking like one giant puffball of white down. At this age, the chicks were completely helpless. Their eyes remained sealed shut. They could not regulate their own body temperature or feed themselves. Hidden beneath the mother’s feathers was a featherless, highly vascularized “brood patch” that transferred warmth directly into the tiny nestlings.

Three tiny white, fluffy, Great Horned Owl chicks huddled together in the middle of the pot

Three tiny chicks hatched, here they are at only a couple days old

Nearby, the male owl kept watch from the evergreen tree only 30 feet away.

While the female guarded and fed the chicks, the male supplied food and defended the nest site. Great Horned Owls are fierce parents, capable of explosive defensive attacks using razor-sharp talons powerful enough to deter most predators, including humans who get too close.

For a brief moment, the impossible seemed to be working, but took a turn

Later in April, observers discovered only two nestlings remaining in the pot. The smallest chick had disappeared. What happened remains unknown. Exposure, predation, sibling competition, or natural causes are all possibilities in the harsh reality of wild owl survival.

Even so, the 2 remaining owlets continue to grow.

The Owl Research Institute and the realtor have been carefully documenting the nesting attempt through photographs and video as this remarkable story unfolds. Few people ever get the opportunity to witness the intimate early life of Great Horned Owls, especially from a nest site unlike anything researchers have seen before.

Can Potty Owl and her mate successfully raise a family in a flower pot beside a front door?

We’re about to find out.

Follow here for future updates!