Eurasian eagle-owls live in much of Europe and Asia, in places from conifer forests to warm deserts, and in Europe they can be found as high as about 6,500 feet, or 2,000 meters. Eagle-owls have also been found living in city parks and towns, and they prefer rocky places such as cliffs and ravines, and they prefer to hunt in open areas. They usually stay in the same area all year.

Eagle-owls are mostly active in the first few hours after sunset and the last few hours before sunrise. An eagle-owl uses keen eyesight and hearing to find prey at night, and the feathers around its face form a disk that helps direct sound to its ears. Its wings make very little noise, so it can fly quietly, and it hunts from a perch or in flight.

Eagle-owls eat many kinds of animals, from beetles to fawns, and they eat mammals such as voles and rats, and they also eat birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. An eagle-owl coughs up an owl pellet: a small ball of hair, feathers and bones it could not digest.

The IUCN Red List lists the Eurasian eagle-owl as Least Concern, as of November 2026. In Europe, laws that protect eagle-owls and programs that bring them back have helped their numbers recover, as of November 2026. Power lines and roads are risks for eagle-owls in some places.

Eagle-owls often pair up for life. They do not build a nest. They use ledges, caves, and the old nests of other large birds. A pair has one to four eggs at a time, and the female sits on the eggs for a little over a month, up to about 36 days. The male brings food to the nest. Young eagle-owls hatch white and fluffy. After they hatch, they can feed themselves at the nest at about three weeks. They can fly by about seven weeks old. In the wild, Eurasian eagle-owls can live about 20 years.

Words to know

• ravines: narrow valleys
• pellet: coughed-up ball
• amphibians: frogs and newts