SHOUT-EARED OWL 177 



much on the edges of man}' deep sloughs waiting for a species of rat. 

 I found many evidences of their success in getting them." There is a 

 cut in the Argentine ornithological journal, El Hornero, of one of these 

 owls sitting on the ground with its feet on either side of a mouse hole, 

 readjr to clasp its victim should it emerge from the ground. 



The short-eared owl may often be found perched motionless on 

 fence posts or stubs of trees, in tufts of grass, or even on the bare 

 ground. Here among dead grass, especially in sand dunes, it is very 

 difficult to see. On one occasion after being deceived several times 

 by owls that resembled stumps or small posts flecked with lichen or 

 sand or snow, I was willing to consider a certain obvious stump to 

 be an owl, but after changing my mind and deciding it was not one, 

 the "stump" opened its wings and flew away! In such situations, 

 the owl remaining perfectly motionless until the fatal moment, doubt- 

 less snaps up many a wandering mouse. 



Although this owl hunts freely by day it hunts more freely at dusk 

 and in the early dawn, and it also hunts at night. It sleeps at inter- 

 vals both day or night usually concealed in tufts of grass and some- 

 times in thick evergreens, in the latter no doubt in storms. In 

 walking over an upland pasture or marsh, or among sand dunes, one 

 may suddenly flush a short-cared owl, disturbed from its nap or 

 watching for a victim, or feasting on one already lolled. Once I 

 flushed one in dunes that, judging from the many feathers about, had 

 been eating a robin. At such times the owl flies away, sails gracefully 

 about, and often alights again at no great distance. 



Charles A. Urner (1923) reports the following interesting behavior 

 of a short-eared owl. After he had answered the call of a yellowlegs — 



Suddenly a Short-eared Owl came out of the growing darkness and dove at my 

 straw hat. He missed it by inches. I whistled the Yellow-legs call again. He 

 turned and dove at me the second time with no end of determination in his manner. 

 Six times I whistled and six times he turned and swooped at me, finally alighting 

 on a mud pile nearby to look the situation over more carefully. I stood in the 

 open marsh with no protection. Had I whistled in the daylight he would have 

 shown no interest. Apparently he did not recognize me as a human in the dusk. 

 He struck on the impulse of his ears — not his eyes. And apparently he knew the 

 taste of Yellow-legs. 



Short-eared owls may be seen pursuing crows and even marsh hawks. 

 Eugene Bicknell (1919) watched a pair of owls repeatedly attacking a 

 single crow. "The Crow, perhaps to escape the Owls, perhaps intent 

 on depredation of their nest, several times swept down to the ground 

 about a certain spot, the Owls pursuing it or awaiting its return into 

 the air when attack and counter-attack were renewed. The following 

 year at the same place a pair were observed on February 22, attacking 

 a Marsh Hawk." 



In the following incident the tables were turned against the short- 

 eared owl as reported by H. P. Attwater (1892). He was attracted 



