Short-eared Owl i35 



a plentiful supply of food from the coops, they prey upon the 

 chicks from the time these are hatched until the}' reach the size of 

 young Thrushes. No doubt, the first visit they pay to the rearing- 

 field is in the legitimate way of business, in search of rodents. These 

 are often plentiful, owing to the lavish supply of grain scattered 

 about the coops. Once they have taken a Pheasant chick, the game 

 is up ; this particular bird and his family will subsist mainly on 

 Pheasants for the next three or four weeks. 



Of actual nests on our commons I have seen but two — in 1896 

 and 1897 — both placed in heather-bushes on the extensive Dunwich 

 " walks." Both were found by the keepers, when searching for 

 Pheasants' eggs, and were left in situ for me to inspect. I believe, 

 however, that the nests are frequently missed, and that a }'ear rarely 

 passes without a pair breeding on these moors. 



The eggs vary from four to seven in number.* In two clutches 

 in my collection, the one from Orkney and the other from Suffolk, 

 the former contained four eggs and the latter five. The fertility 

 is said to increase in direct ratio with the abundance of food. 



The Short-eared Owl is a very silent bird at all times, and I 

 have never heard it utter a note of any kind except in the breeding 

 season. This note is a short, barking cry, and I have heard it among 

 the Orcadian hills. In Suffolk, I have never heard any sound proceed 

 from this Owl, which I look upon as far the most silent of the 

 four common British Owls. 



A keeper, on the ground adjoining ours at Thorpe, told me (1891) 

 that " several pairs " annually bred on the commons on his side. He 

 killed all he came across, as he considered them most destructive to 

 game. Although I tried to combat this \'iew, he continued to shoot 

 them down without mercy. On May 19th (1892), he killed an adult 

 male with incubation spots on the breast, and very large testes, 

 undoubtedly one of a breeding pair. This bird came into my hands 

 through m\' Thorpe gunner. 



On the Crown Farm Common, Sizewell, in 1899, the keeper 

 of that beat told me that he had seen a pair of Short-eared Owls 

 continuallv in the neighbourhood of the " Square Covert " (a thick 

 patch of whin and broom) throughout Ma}', June and Jul}'. He 

 had not found the nest, but he had no doubt thev bred there. 



In 189 1, on September 7th and 8th, I saw a male Short-eared 

 Owl on the evenings of both these days in the same " Square Covert." 

 The Owl was flushed b}' a rough-haired terrier I had with me, who 

 was, of course, rabbiting, and was quite uninterested in the Owl. 



* Osuin I.ee, " .\mong British Birds," iv., p. 132, writes : " The Short-eared Owl lays 

 from four to eight eggs ; occasionally as many as nine are found. They are deposited at con- 

 siderable intervals, as it is not uncommon to find half-fledged young and fresh eggs in the same 

 nest." He describes a nest from Kirkwall. See also " The Zoologist," December 15, 1908 (is', 

 ser., vol. xii., p. 467), where J. Whitaker describes finding a nest with eight eggs. 



P. .Xdair, in " .Xnn. of Scottish Nat. His.," iSqa, p. 222 — " The average number may safely 

 be taken at eight to ten, and the number of young reared at seven." He mentions a nest 

 which contained ten young birds. In the schedule appended to the paper the recorded clutches 

 vary from five to thirteen, and the author gives eleven as a common number. — Editor. 



