Yes it does
Yes, you can add beast forms to your Wild Shape repertoire of beasts seen by casting conjure animals. The spell explicitly says the conjured creatures literally are beasts, and a creature of the type beast is all Wild Shape needs you to see in order to add its form to your repertoire.
Though someone might by tempted to quibble that they're not real beasts because they're really fey spirits clothed in the shape of beasts, look at it this way: First the Druid conjures a bunch of spirits that take on the form and behaviour of the real beasts they look like. The creatures so conjured proceed to behave and look exactly like the real thing. What better opportunity is there for a shapechanger to learn a new form to wear, than to see a nature spirit do the exact same thing as they're wanting to learn to do?
But it's of limited use
What you might actually run afoul of is limitations on metagaming, or a DM whose setting doesn't include just any creature you can think of (even if it's in the Monster Manual).
- A DM who wants to limit metagaming would be within their rights to ask you to justify your choice. If you try to summon a Giant Owl but your druid has never seen one before, a DM could easily say "How do you know those exist? You've never seen one. How is your druid "choosing" an animal (s)he has never seen or heard of before?"
- A DM who has developed a custom setting isn't straightjacketed by the Monster Manual and doesn't have to include everything in it. Giant Owls might not exist in a DM's campaign.
This also means that this is much less of a loophole than it might seem — after all, how big is the difference between the set of creatures a druid has personally seen and the set of creatures the druid knows about well enough to deliberately try to conjure? I can't imagine it's a very large number.
But in principle, yes, a conjured animal inhabited by a fey spirit is plenty to learn that form from. Just mind that, if you can conjure a particular animal, it's highly likely your druid has already seen it anyway. This makes this method of acquiring new forms both limited in utility and not much of a loophole to worry about, either way.
This is unclear, and it's ultimately the DM's call. Beyond the general "what the DM says goes", it's not spelled out what exactly it means to have seen an animal. There's plenty of room for the DM to say that it's not seeing the shape that matters, but seeing a living animal with your mystical druidic connection, which won't work with a mere polymorphed form. (Or whatever similar reasoning.)
At first, I thought: it's kind of ... not so great ... for the DM to restrict class options in this way. But, on looking, the only three beasts at this CR from the basic rules (or for that matter, Monster Manual or Volo's Guide) are:
- Ankylosaurus
- Giant Scorpion
- Killer Whale
Many DMs don't allow dinosaurs ("there aren't any in this fantasy world"); Killer Whale is kind of limited even if you have gone whale-watching in the right environment; and Giant Scorpion also seems likely to be rather... environment-specific.
Personally as a DM, I'd let you play this trick with Giant Scorpion, mostly because you don't have any other options in the books and that's kind of lame. But, because of the specific nature of the three listed options, I can understand saying no, too. You might have to make do until next level, when you can shift into elementals.
Alternately, you might ask: "Hey, what beasts of around that power have I seen?" While there are a limited number of beasts listed in the rules, the Monster Manual says:
OTHER ANIMALS
A book of this size can’t contain statistics for every animal inhabiting your D&D campaign world. However, you can use the stat block of one animal to represent another easily enough. For example, you can use the panther statistics to represent a jaguar, the giant goat statistics to represent a buffalo, and the hawk statistics to represent a falcon.
It's reasonable to assume that there exist CR 3 animals which you've seen but which aren't represented. As @enkryptor notes, the rule requires you to have seen the animal ever in your life, not just in this campaign. And, the Wild Shape rules don't say "a beast from the Monster Manual". So, particularly if you're not allowed any of the official listings, I think asking for something you can use is fair.
This could be as simple as "So, what is basically mechanically like an ankylosaurus or giant scorpion that does fit in this environment?" Or, there are several 3rd-party books of beasts (or monster books which contain some beasts) that might be worth looking into (search at DM's Guild, for example).. Or, you could ask the DM to create an option for you using the rules in the DMG, which gives typical hit points, AC, damage per round, etc. Maybe call it a "dire" version of something you've seen before, or pick a name which seems somewhere in power between a rhinoceros and an elephant.
Best Answer
You just need to see one beast of its kind, not every possible phenotypic category of a kind of beast. If you did, it would specify that with something like
It only specifies that you have seen that kind of beast before, nothing more.