October 15, 2026

By Mary Beth Gahan

The most popular topic at Town Hall last week wasn’t when town council met to discuss lights over pickleball courts or when a developer came before the environmental conservation commission for permission to remove trees for Costco’s parking lot.

It was at the animal services board meeting, where there were no controversial items on the agenda or even cute puppies in attendance. But there were owl boxes, and when those are near, so are screech owl enthusiasts.

Like proud grandparents, they’re always at the ready with stories to tell and pictures to show. (We asked for one photo to run with this story and got 33.)

If you’re looking to also have owl fledglings in your backyard and control the rat population while you’re at it, the animal services board wants to help. You just need a tree or pole and the curiosity that already has you looking out your window and wondering what kind of bird just landed on the fence. We know. We’ve been there too.

Screech owls aren’t seen often because they’re nocturnal, but they are in Flower Mound year-round. They roost in tree cavities, but as those are cleared for development, boxes can be a way for owls to continue to live in the area.

Many say they put up a box and had an owl move in within days.

Courtney Montoya has had less luck, but that hasn’t dimmed her passion for the owls that weigh about the same as a lemon and have a wingspan of two pencil lengths.

Montoya put up a box in 2019. For three years, she scrolled through the Facebook group Screech Owls of Flo Mo as others posted pictures of their owl grandbabies. One Halloween, she posted a photo of a skeleton sitting at a patio table littered with empty Coors Light bottles.

“Me waiting for an owl to show up,” she wrote.

On Christmas Eve 2022, she spotted a male in one of her boxes, the one she dubbed “The Love Shack.” When she looked at the camera feed from inside the other box, the bachelor pad, there was a female owl, more red than brown.

“A gorgeous red,” Montoya said. She called her Ginger.

Montoya watched Ginger each evening for a month. She timed her dinner around the owl’s schedule. When friends asked her to meet up, she said she had to wait for Ginger to leave for her nightly hunt first.

“I saw fraternization with my own eyes. I was like, “She's going to get knocked up. I can't wait.’” Montoya said.

Then, one day in January, Ginger disappeared.

Montoya found out after asking around the neighborhood that Ginger went three doors down to another owl box and hatched one owlet. She raised her baby and watched it fledge.

She returned to Montoya’s yard in May, “hanging out footloose and fancy-free.”

“She came back and I thought, ‘I am not going to be bitter. I'm just glad she's back,’” Montoya said.

Ginger watched Montoya mow the yard and have happy hour all summer. She left again in the winter to have more babies and returned the following spring.

On Christmas Eve 2024, two years to the day after she first saw Ginger with her boyfriend, Montoya found Ginger in her yard. She was dead.

There were no obvious signs of trauma on the owl, so Montoya suspects that Ginger ate a rat that ingested rodenticide, a poison that another homeowner put out for rats.

She called David McCarty, a wildlife enthusiast and self-proclaimed “nut for all raptors.”

McCarty has had the same pair of owls come back to his box for the last seven years.

He was one of the first members of Screech Owls of Flo Mo Facebook group after Jim Simpkins started it in 2018. The group had more than 300 members by the end of the first week. It grew to 1,000 within the first month. Now, there are 2,700 members.

In 2020, the page gave residents of Flower Mound a joyful way to connect with others when seeing each other in person was too risky.

“It really was a life saver,” McCarty said. “It was just amazing what it did for people who were just otherwise, you know, trapped in their homes.”

McCarty is subpermitted by Texas Parks and Wildlife to handle wildlife for transport — he saved a barn owl from a church under construction in Northlake the day we talked — and regularly gives talks to groups about what he and others have learned. Topics covered include when they pair up (from November to January), when they mate (December to March), and how long things take (incubation lasts around 30 days).

“I wouldn’t consider myself an expert. I just have had the privilege of having screech owls almost in my living room for the last decade,” he said.

He was pulled up to the podium by Animal Services Board Chairwoman Beth Soderberg at the meeting to speak about how to maintain owl boxes.

The board, which serves as an advisory liaison between town council and the animal shelter, is in the pilot phase of giving away owl boxes to interested residents. It’s called Whoo’s in the Shelter and the initial 20 boxes built by Eagle Scout candidate Grayson Hulog have already been claimed.

For those who still want a box, the animal services board has volunteers who are willing to help cut pieces of wood to the appropriate dimensions for assembly. There are also instructions on this pdf for those wanting to do all the work themselves. More information will be included in October utility bills from the town.

And for visitors checking out who is in the actual shelter at Flower Mound Animal Services off of Justin Road, there is a display with an owl box and more information about the Whoo’s in the Shelter program in the lobby near the cats.

McCarty said he first got involved the program with the town because he wants people to be aware of the owls and what dangers are posed to them in Flower Mound, especially with regards to rodenticide.

Once a rat eats the poison, it becomes lethargic and easy prey for screech owls.

“All it takes is one injured or sick rat or mouse, and you're going to wipe out all the kids, all the babies, and probably the mom and dad if they eat on the rodent,” McCarty said. “And it's a terrible death.”

Instead of putting out poison for rats, McCarty hopes people will put up an owl box so the owls will eat the rodents.

The boxes should be placed on a pole or tree 8 to 15 feet high and the bottom should be filled with kiln-dried cedar.

As a warning, it won’t be long before you have a camera in and outside the box.

“When you see a little 7 or 8-inch-tall owl bring in an 18-inch-long rat with his tail, you're all in,” McCarty said. “And then you watch them feed and take care of their offspring. I mean, when those little eggs hatch — they're basically cotton balls with eyes — you immediately become attached to them.”

Pretty soon, you’ll be pulling your phone out of your back pocket to show a stranger the latest photo of your resident owl at an annual gathering of screech owl enthusiasts.

“We’re thinking of changing the group name to ‘Owlcoholics Anonymous’ because we’re so attached to these stupid little birds,” McCarty said.

The owls are just now starting to visit boxes in the town and check out potential nesting sites before the flirting begins.

As for Montoya, she’s still waiting, Coors Light in hand.

“I have not seen an owl. I have not had an owl,” she said. “I heard an owl about three weeks ago and I about flipped out of my chair.”