I wanted to post some screen shots I found while “following the owl” on www.secretstreetview.com.
The first one is from Salem. You can see a brown owl taking off from the awning and heading west. You can also see the “magic” letter J.K. Rowling used as a teaser for what the website would be called. If you head west (the same direction as the owl) on the Secret Street View website, it takes you to Toronto. I have yet to find an owl in Toronto (or anywhere else I’ve looked), but I’ll keep looking. (Click the images to see them larger.)
Here are some of my theories.
- Why would J.K. Rowling go through so much effort to make an entire website with real-life GPS coordinates just to hide some letters for people to find out a name? I think there’s more to this website.
- This owl that I found is going in a very obvious direction and you can see it no matter what view you use (this isn’t true with other various birds and airplanes I’ve found in other locations on Secret Street View).
- All of the owls on her YouTube page and even on Pottermore are all brown – no snowy owls to be seen. This is important because I found a white bird in Toronto that I thought was an owl at first, but turned out to be a seagull.
Another view of the brown owl in Salem. It doesn’t disappear no matter where you look at it from.
Two white birds on the same screen in Toronto. I was really hoping this was an owl, but it disappears if you move the angle. And it’s not brown. Plus, why would there be TWO owls going different directions??
Another bird in Toronto. It also goes away with different views.
By the way, if you change the URL on Pottermore.com, you get this screen:
If anyone wants to follow along, here’s the information I got from Potterish.com about the scavenger hunt on June 15.
Site coordinates came from: GPS Location – name of place.
1. The Leaky Cauldron : 42.523356, -70.890698 – salem
2. Mugglenet : 51.530377, -0.123259 – king’s cross station
3. Harry Potter Xperts : -34.410362,150.900671 – australia
4. Univers Harry Potter : 29.952313, -90.067849 -new orleans
5. HPANA : -29.239004,24.507602 – Africa
6. Blog Hogwarts : 34.730748,137.383786 – Japan
7. Slug Club : -23.547149, -46.520266 -brazil
8. Snitch Seeker : 51.781383, -2.56844 -forest of dean
9. Portkey : 43.640408, -79.388795 -toronto
10. pottermore @ : 53.476311, -2.22971 manchester station
I entered these GPS coordinates into Google Maps and this is what it looks like. Zoom out if you can’t see the world map.
View My Saved Places in a larger map
I’ve noticed that people have been coming to my site from Google and I hope these screen shots help. If anyone else has any theories to add to mine, please leave a comment and let me know!
My name is Jessica. I love to read Young Adult and classic literature. I’ve been a book blogger for six years and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. I’m a very curious reader. Writing about all the questions and thoughts I had while reading a book is the best hobby ever.
I like this theory! Did you notice the ’20’ on the owl? Look at you zoomed in screenshot. I went on secret street view as well and noticed it.
I didn’t! It’s very faint, but now that you mention it, I can see it. I wonder what it means…
The ‘owl’ on 18 washington square doesn’t mean anything. It’s a statue of a hawthorn, and it’s the symbol of hawthorn hotel in washington, which is the building it’s in front of, nailed to the entrance:(