SHORT-EARED OWL, 175 



cutworms. Of 254 stomachs examined, 15 percent contained birds. 

 Cahn and Kemp (1930) examined 137 pellets of this owl and found 

 the remains of 110 small mammals of five species and of three birds; 

 two were meadowlarks and one a vesper sparrow. 



Errington (1932c) from a study of pellets found the remains of 68 

 meadow mice, 115 deer mice, 1 snow bunting, and 1 meadowlark, 

 and he says that this owl "seemed to show a distinct preference for 

 small mammalian over small avian prey, even at times when small 

 birds may have actually far outnumbered the rodents which were 

 depended on for food." 



Although rodents are the chief of this bird's diet there are occa- 

 sional exceptions generally under unusual circumstances. Thus 

 William Brewster (1879) found at Muskegat a small colony of short- 

 eared owls that preyed on the nesting terns. At least a hundred had 

 been killed and eaten, judged from the remains, and in each case the 

 breast had been picked clean, but nothing but the breast had been 

 eaten. At this island in June 1913, I found about 50 terns treated 

 in this way by the short-eared owls. Nothing but the breasts and 

 entrails had been eaten. The remains of the terns were found singly 

 or in groups of three to six. Laurence M. Huey (1926b) reports an 

 entire California black rail, swallowed in two pieces, in the stomach 

 of a short-eared owl. He also reports in detail the contents of two 

 pellets of this bird from a salt marsh near San Diego. In one of 

 these were the skulls and other bones of two species of bats and the 

 remains of a meadow mouse, of a Belding's marsh sparrow, and of a 

 Savannah sparrow. The other contained the remains of the two 

 species of bats, of an American pipit, and unidentified bird bones, 

 feathers, and mouse hair. Pierce Brodkorb (1928) reports two 

 j uncos and two swamp sparrows found in one stomach and in another 

 a snow bunting. Urner (1923) found a nest of this owl "literally 

 carpeted with the feathers of small birds. At its edge was a freshly- 

 killed Sharp-tailed Sparrow. I found no remains of mice and only 

 one small pellet composed apparently of feathers." Ludwig Kumlien 

 (1899) found a nest in Wisconsin made up of feathers and matted 

 grass in which he found the remains of more than 40 species of birds 

 varying in size from a kinglet to a meadowlark and, curiously enough, 

 no trace of any mammal. He took the three young, about two weeks 

 old, to his house and found they required 12 to 15 English sparrows 

 daily to satisfy them. 



J. A. Munro (1918) records the following: 



Between September 28 and October 16, 1909, I spent several days collecting 

 in a small dry meadow, on the south shore of Ashbridge's Marsh [Toronto]. 

 Short-eared Owls were more numerous than usual and were apparently feeding 

 entirely on small birds. Four stomachs examined contained feathers and bird 

 bones exclusively. In a small tract of dry grassy meadow, roughly estimated 

 at fifty acres, I found feathers of the following species marking the spot where 



