202 BRITAIN'S BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS. 



have been found laid on the bare ground. Several pairs 

 of these Owls often nest within a very small area. Great 

 boldness is sometimes shown when any one approaches 

 too near a nest containing yoimg Owls, and a parent- 

 bird has been observed practising the trick of shamming 

 disablement in similar circumstances. The young utter 

 mewing sounds while in the nest. They are of the 

 usual down-clad but nidicolous type, the down being 

 mottled with light brown instead of being pure white. 

 They have been observed to leave the nest and clamber 

 about with the aid of their beaks before being fully 

 able to fly. 



THE SHORT=EARED OWL 



(Asio accipitrinus). 



The Short-eared Owl is a somewhat similar bird of 

 about the same size, but with very small ' ear "* tufts. It 

 is not an arboreal species, but frequents open moorlands 

 and marshy ' waste ' country, and nests on the ground. 

 It is also more of a diurnal hunter. It is a markedly 

 migratory Owl, and is chiefly a winter visitor to the 

 British Isles, over which it is then generally distributed. 

 It nests in small numbers in a few smtable regions 

 of Great Britain, from the south-west of England to 

 the northern Scottish isles. Vole plagues, which occui' 

 from time to time in various parts of the country, are 

 frequently accompanied by a corresponding temporary 

 increase in the number of Short-eared Owls breeding 

 locally. At such times, too, abnormally large clutches 

 become the rule. The nest is only a depression among 

 the heather of the moor or the reeds of the fen ; the six 

 or more eggs are of the usual white, rounded type. 



