Do you look at the bottom card when you draw an owl as the first card in a gathering?
No, you don't do any special actions. You only do what the rules tell you to, which is to add tokens based on the number of flowers. From this version of the rules (IELLO's own link was broken):

The rules are ordered quite clearly. At the beginning of the game:


  In order to start, the youngest player flips over the first card of the Path card deck (and adds to it as many face-down Gathering tokens as there are flowers on the card). This will be the first card for Gathering. Then, this player takes the first turn of the game as explained below.


The final step for the "Stop Gathering" choice is:


  Reveal the first Path card from the deck in order to start the next player Gathering anew (add whatever Gathering tokens should be added). Now it is time for the player to your left to take her turn.


The rules for the special cards (Little Red Riding Hood and the owl) only come up within the "Continue Gathering" choice (and only if the number on the card is high enough), so you only follow them when you draw the card as a result of choosing the "Continue Gathering" action.

If cards resolved as normal at this time then you'd immediately lose your turn before you started with a wolf card, due to it having the number 0!