66 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



sportsman is greatl}- astonished when he sees two or three cherubic looking Owls 

 rise solemnh- before his dogs, instead of the expected covey, and flj'ing off with 

 a biioj'ant, gull-like, flight. The Owls soon drop into cover, bvit become wild if 

 again disturbed, and will not permit a close approach, not unseldoni mounting by 

 circles high into the air, even if there be bright sunshine, and disappear out of 

 sight. The writer has moved one in the day-time from a dead Peewit, whose 

 head it had just torn off, after the manner of Owls, for its first bite, showing 

 that this species is not entirely nocturnal, but will occasionally hunt for its prey 

 during the day. The Short-eared Owl is often found in the winter time con- 

 gregated in some numbers ; indeed, it is rare to flush a single bird, as there are 

 generall}- three or four on the ground close together ; on sand hills on the coast 

 the writer has put up over twenty at a time, and it was not a little amusing to 

 see so man}' on wing at once, circling round, and then dropping one after the 

 other into the rushes. On the curious peat-moor district in Mid-Somerset the 

 Short-eared Owl is sometimes abundant, and the writer has flushed more Owls 

 than Snipe in a day's shooting. One of the Owls once perched on the top of a 

 large furze bush to watch the movements of the shooting-party, the only instance, 

 in the writer's experience, of its alighting on anything like a tree, although he 

 has occasionally seen it perched on the top of a wall. On the Lincolnshire 

 coast the Short-eared Owl is commonly captured in the flight-nets stretched for 

 wild fowl in the autumn. 



This species has a very wide range, being found in most parts of the world ; 

 it is distributed over Europe, Asia, America, both north and south, over Africa, as 

 far soiith as Natal, being a winter visitor to the southern limits of its range, and 

 in some countries it is onl}" seen on passage in spring and auti:mn. A few used 

 to breed regularl}- in Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire, especially preferring 

 the fens, and there may be still a few pairs nesting in certain protected spots. 

 Its nest has been found in single instances in Devonshire, Hants, and Pembroke- 

 shire ; several in Cardiganshire, in 1874, on Sir Pryse Pryse's estate. In the 

 northern counties it is more frequent as a nesting species on the moors, and it 

 nests commonly throughout Scotland. In the j-ears from 1888 — 1891, when the 

 common field-voles multiplied to such an extent as to become quite a plague in 

 some of the Scotch lowland counties, a great number of Short-eared Owls were 

 attracted by the abundance of their favourite food, and nests of these birds were 

 found in the fields containing upwards of a dozen eggs, proving that, like other 

 members of the Owl famil}^ this species becomes extra prolific when it can obtain 

 plenty of food. When the voles were at last all destro3'ed, man}- of the Owls 

 were picked up starved and dead upon the ground ; the instinct that had brought 



