adult

adult in flight European distribution adult at rest and taking flight

Identification

Unlike the other owls, the Short-eared habitually hunts by day. However, it isn't safe to assume that a day-flying owl, even over moorland, is sure to be a Short-eared. To eliminate the possibility of it being a Long-eared you must look for either: a pale belly contrasting with a streaked head and chest, a white trailing edge to the wing, neater, more distinct barring on the uppertail, upperwing and under the wing tip and the yellow, rather than orange, eyes. Also, the colour of a Short-eared Owl varies from under-cooked biscuit-brown to overcooked biscuit-brown and never shows the warm rufous tones of a Long-eared. At rest, the ear tufts are hard to see but the yellow eyes are distinctively encircled by black.

Habitat

Breeds on boggy moorland, upland pasture, young conifer plantations and marshes. Winters in open moorland, grassland and marshes.

Behaviour

The soft hooting song is usually given from a great height above the breeding site and is often the prelude to a spectacular display in which he claps his wings several times below his body. This causes him to lose height but he quickly corrects this and carries out another burst of wing-clapping, thus following an erratic path across the sky. Between wing-claps the male will fly with exaggerated slow wingbeats in which the wings are held almost vertically above the body before each downward beat. Breeding success is dependant on the availability voles, in any year. In a good year, the female will be well fed and so will have enough resources to produce more eggs than usual, sometimes even 10 or more. These are laid at one day intervals and therefore hatch out in such a way that the youngest may be a week or more younger than the oldest. This means that in the squabble for food, the young chicks only get fed when the older ones are full so if the food supply deteriorates, the youngest ones will die without limiting the chances of success of the older ones. Indeed, the parents may feed the remains of the dead chicks to their surviving siblings so that no resources are wasted.

Migration

Resident but, to some extent, nomadic in southern Europe. Northern populations from Scandinavia and Russia are migratory.

This information is taken from the BirdFile on the appropriate BirdGuides DVD-ROM. As well as video and sounds, our CD- and DVD-ROMs contain additional text on Voice, Sexing, Ageing, Food, Nests and Eggs and more.

For the purposes of our bird news services, Short-eared Owl is classed as Local: generally fairly regular or common species that a 'county lister' or a birding beginner might be interested in going to see. (Note that rarity levels are currently applied nationally and may not reflect local variations in abundance.)

Old Hall Marshes, Essex 31/08/2010	Snettisham RSPB, Norfolk 15/08/2010	Snettisham RSPB, Norfolk 15/08/2010	Skomer, Pembrokes 05/07/2010	Carinish, Outer Hebrides 05/06/2010
Carinish, Outer Hebrides 05/06/2010	L.Eil, Highland 05/08/2010	undisc. site, Argyll 01/08/2010	North Uist, Outer Hebrides 18/07/2010	North Uist, Outer Hebrides 17/06/2010

 View all pictures of Short-eared Owl

Short-eared Owl breeds in the following countries (Bird News Extra subscribers will see population statistics and information on trends for each country):

Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Belgium
Britain
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Moldova
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Romania
Russia
Serbia and Montenegro
Slovakia
Spain
Sweden
Turkey
Ukraine

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	'Eared' Owls	Thursday 9th March 2006
	The 'eared owls' can present an identification conundrum to the unwary, but here are several simple steps to identification, even making birds in flight easy.

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