Hoo is the cutest little bird?
Owls are, to put it bluntly, adorable. There is something about those perfectly round shapes, those big eyes, and their beautiful fluffy plumage that appeals to us. They also have silly features like their Abnormal Limb Rotation Range, faces that read to humans as a perpetual mix of The Comically Serious and Eye Take, and their cute little hoots which have served so many "Who's on First?" jokes that it became its own sub-trope.
Even if you are ornithophobicnote , you can at least admit that they are rather Creepy Cute, or at the very least pretty rad.
There are two kinds of Cute Owls that mostly coincide with the two real-life families of owls:
- The Tytonidae - Barn owls and their relatives - is mostly represented cute in an elegant way because of its softer features and lighter colors and is as such depicted almost always female in fiction. It doesn't necessarily forbids her to be Badass Adorable and she could still have Silk Hiding Steel.
- The Strigidae - 'Typical' or 'eared' owlsnote - is often depicted as an Endearingly Dorky nerd, coupling this trope with The Owl-Knowing One, the most common Animal Stereotype associated with owls. Expect this Cute Bookworm to have scruffy feathers, wear Nerd Glasses (the big circles around its eyes being a natural inspiration of this), bowties and other geeky accessories. For a long time, this variety was almost Always Male — leading to a common misconception that the two varieties are from the same family with Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism — but the growing representation of female geeks in media is slowly discrediting this cliché.
Contrast Ominous Owl and Feathered Fiend, who are very much not like this. Compare The Owl-Knowing One, Unwise Owl, and Noble Bird of Prey. Note that cute owls could still be evil, even the nerdy ones.
For other birds with similar connotations, see Doves Mean Peace and Bluebird of Happiness.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Basara: The heroine Sarasa has a pet in the form of Shinbashi, an utterly adorable, tiny pet owl (she adopted him precisely because he was the runt of the litter) that's always with her. His presence often serves as a reprieve from Basara's heavy story of destiny, rebellion and political intrigue.
- Rowlet is already one of these in the games, but Ash's Rowlet in Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon is even more so, with its ditzy, perpetually sleepy personality and its habit of hiding in Ash's backpack.
Comic Books
- The children's comic series Owly by Andy Runton is all about the adventures of an incredibly cute (and vegetarian!) owl.
Film — Animated
- In Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, while most owls are badass, the owlets, particularly Soren's little sister Eglantine, are ridiculously cute. Gylfie the elf owl and Soren himself manage to be Badass Adorable.
- Eva the Russian snowy owl in Penguins of Madagascar. Despite her rather stoic face, Kowalski is deeply in love with her.
- Merlin's talking owl Archimedes in The Sword in the Stone.
- There is an owl among the Woodland Creatures in Disney's Sleeping Beauty.
Film — Live Action
- Bubo, the mechanical owl in the original Clash of the Titans. Athena sent it to help Perseus, but it ends up being more of a Plucky Comic Relief.
Literature
- Blue Moose: Dave the Mountain Man has an adorable owl for a companion.
- Harry Potter: There are comments from female students on Ron's owl Pigwidgeon being cute in The Goblet of Fire (and he is a total keet). Ron thinks he's a stupid little feathery git.
- Little Owl's Night: The main character Little Owl.
- The title characters of Martin Waddell's children's book Owl Babies.
Live Action TV
- Prehistoric Planet: Although the Mononykus is not an owl, it does have both the similar facial disk and light tawny born and white colours of a barn owl, and is plenty cute the way it runs and bumbles around.
Toys
- Although some people find them creepy, Furbies — Cartoon Creatures looking like a mashup of an owl, a hamster and a mogwai — were intended to be cute and advertised
as such.
- Owleez are adorable electronic owls that can actually fly, thanks to retractable propellers.
Video Games
- Feh from Fire Emblem Heroes is an adorable tiny white owl who delivers you items throughout the game.
- Blathers from the Animal Crossing series can be considered cute in a dorky kind of way. His little sister Celeste however is completely cute with her Black Bead Eyes, Blush Stickers and pink bow. You can even tease Celeste about her being cute.
- Cedric the Owl in King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! is your standard Wise Old Owl / Exposition Fairy, but his monocle and jacket definitively makes him cuter. His voice and role in the game however didn't please everybody.
- Mahina from Octopath Traveler II qualifies when Ochette chooses her as her Animal Companion. She's a malamaowl (an owl with elemental powers) who's Ochette's best friend, and she has a more openly-sweet personality than Akala does (who still cares about Ochette, but is a tad more strict with her). Very much averted if Ochette chose Akala instead, as Mahina ends up being Ochette's final boss instead.
- Pokémon:
- Pokémon Sun and Moon introduces the Grass starter Rowlet, a bowtied Mon so round that it can almost be considered a Waddling Head. Its later evolutions are more cute in a dorky way, as Dartrix is a Neat Freak who tends to bungle things up and only makes things worse, while Decidueye acts all cool until someone gets the drop on it which then it panics.
- Back in Gold and Silver, Hoothoot could arguably be described as Creepy Cute with its round shape, its big red eyes, and crazy eyebrows and "eyeliner". Its evolution Noctowl however completely drops the cute act for a more imposing stature. Note that Hoothoot line is based on the Strigidae while the Rowlet line is based on the Tytonidae.
- The Togepi line, particularly Togekiss, may also be partially based on owls.
- In Monster Hunter: Rise, Hunters get the services of a new pet called the Cohoot in place of the Poogie as a village pet you can pet and dress up. While on the hunt, Cohoots serve about the same purpose as Scoutflies, tracking down and scouting monsters your Hunter is pursuing among other things.
- The mascot of the Edutainment Game Duolingo is Duo, a small green owl, also a case of The Owl-Knowing One.
- Hootle from Tales of Arise is an adorably round owlet who serves as the Team Pet and overall mascot of the game. The longest sidequest in the game involves using Hootle to track down other owls to help them find their way back home to the Owl Forest.
Web Comics
- In Realm of Owls, especially the owl people's babies are an epitome of a cute owl, but the adults also tend to look cute when they goof around and stare at stuff happening in front of them.
Web Animation
- Octavia, Stolas's daughter from Helluva Boss, was adorable when she was a little girl. These days, she's more of an embittered Emo Teen as a result of having to deal with her mother and father's relationship. Likewise, Stolas was quite cute himself when he was younger.
Web Original
- The Art Student Owl meme averts this, being a cynical, lazy, and jaded character who is always seen smoking. However, his counterpart, Art Newbie Owl, completely fits the bill, being a young Wide-Eyed Idealist owl who is very excited about art.
Web Video
- True Facts About the Owl is chock-full of examples. They include:
- A burrowing owl doing an extreme version of the Quizzical Tilt.
- A pygmy owl...in the process of killing a woodpecker.
- Another burrowing owl investigating a tunnel camera.
- Owls of various species being petted by humans, and apparently enjoying it a lot.
Western Animation
- In Central Park, Season 1 "Rival Busker", Owen and Cole watches a live stream of an owl's nest that has a mother owl and her babies, which they name one of them Tito. Because when Tito falls out of its nest, they both decide to go save it despite interfering with nature.
- The classic Merrie Melodies short I Love to Singa features a little owl singing jazz in a radio contest.
"I love to sing-a, about the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a."
- In the second season of Bojack Horseman, BoJack starts dating a cute female owl named Wanda Pierce, although it is less her cuteness and more the fact that she has no idea of all the gossip surrounding him, having just awakened from a 30-year coma, that made him fall in love with her.
- Owlowicious from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Everybody immediately falls in love with the cute bird, Rarity even giving him a gems-encrusted bowtie at one point, except for Spike who is jealous of the owl getting so much attention. Through his eyes, everything he does is ominous.
(Owlowicious turns his head 180 degrees and stares at Spike with a Scare Chord)Spike: Whoa! Dude, that's creepy.
- Chad the Owl from My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Holidays Unwrapped, who hangs around Fluttershy in the "Winter Break-In" segment. Sunset wants to use him as a distraction in her plan to sneak into a locked Canterlot High, but Twilight shoots the idea down.
- Adventure Time:
- The Cosmic Owl was presented as a mysterious and all powerful deity that everyone fears and respects as he appears in Prophetic Dreams. When he is formally introduced in the show, it turns out that he is a nerdy and awkward guy who just wants to play Tabletop Games with friends.
- Subverted with the bird woman (who is some kind of squirrel-owl mixup) from the episode "Hoots". When the Cosmic Owl sees her in while visiting dreams, he immediately falls for her and starts dating her, but it is eventually revealed that she is an avatar of Gunter a.k.a. Orgalorg manipulating him to appear in Princess Bubblegum's dream and turn it into a prophetic nightmare.
- Puffin Rock has Otto and his younger siblings Pip and Pop.
- The Owl House has Eda's palisman, Owlbert. She even admits at one point that she can't get mad at him because he's so cute.
