THE " WOODCOCK M OWL 131 



enraged. For a while the male recognisable by 

 his slightly smaller size and paler plumage keeps 

 away, coasting about angrily at a good distance, 

 but his wife is by no means so tame a combatant. 

 Time after time she fairly stoops at you. In sooth, 

 as you sit caressing the ow r lets in your lap, the 

 fiend-bird frequently passes over within two or 

 three feet of your head. Your friend, who is 

 standing back-on to her rushes for she always 

 attacks from the one side she actually strikes on 

 the nape with her wing, and more than once. 

 You she will not hit, simply because you face her. 

 Although each stoop is in itself quite noiseless, once 

 or twice, as the bird flings round suddenly pre- 

 paratory to a fresh onslaught, there is produced a 

 regular swish of fast-beating wings. 



Both birds expostulate with you, the male with 

 hoarse kwaks, usually repeated six or seven times, 

 and a single, weird utterance of kwe-ow ; the 

 female, who has less leisure for remonstrance, with 

 a short, sharp, hwow or wow. Not till you have 

 retreated some way will peace reign once again 

 in this pleasingly-pugnacious moorland family. 

 Usually the Short-eared Owl is a comparatively 

 mute species. 



Most nests must be sought in the valleys, or 

 half way up the braes, amongst a medley of tall 

 rushes and heather, or in rushes alone. A few, 

 however, are found in heather only though rarely 

 in quite short heather especially in a long-since 



K 2 



