278 



THE SHORT-EARED OWL. 



[March 1895. 



III.— THE SHOKT-EARED OWL. 



Otiis hrachyotus (Strix hrachyotus). 



The Short-Eared Owl is different in its habits from other owls 

 found in Great Britain, which live in thick woods and plantations, 

 or in barns, churches, and ruins, and seldom leave their retreats 

 during the day. The haunts of the Short-Eared Owl are heath 

 and moorland, marshes, furzy downs, meadows, turnip-fields and 

 open places, principally in the north of England and Scotland, 

 though it is found occasionally in many English counties. It 

 flies in the daytime, and may be seen hunting for mice, voles, 

 and other vermin at all times of the day. Prentis, in his Birds 

 of Eainham (Kent), says that the short-eared owl is not un- 

 common and comes in the autumn. It visits the marshes, where 

 it is safe, nearly every year. When partridge shooting, these 

 owls have been met with in Kentish turnip fields. On one 

 occasion a pair nested and succeeded in hatching their young on 

 an island marsh which had been lying idle throughout the 

 winter and spring. But this owl, being migratory, does not, 

 as a rule, breed in Great Britain, and leaves this country at the 

 beginning of the spring for many other countries, so that, to 

 use Seebohm's words, outside our islands its range is almost 

 cosmopolitan. It is found in such different latitudes as the 

 Sandwich Isles and Greenland. Sometimes, however, as orni- 

 thologists relate, its nest is found in this country, especially in 

 districts where there has been an extraordinary supply of its 

 favourite food — mice, voles, or rats. In Gloucestershire, for 

 example, when there was a great plague of mice in the Forest of 

 Dean, the Short-Eared Owl was attracted there in large numbers 

 and materially assisted in destroying the intruders. 



In the recent visitation of field voles in some districts in the 

 south of Scotland, unusual numbers of the Short-Eared Owl 

 appeared upon the scene and nested there. The Departmental 

 Committee appointed, in 1892, by the Board of Agriculture to 

 inquire into this Plague of Field Yoles say in their report, ^' This 

 bird, which is distributed over almost every part of the globe, 

 is a normal winter migrant to these islands, appearing simulta- 

 neously with the woodcock (whence it is popularly known as 

 the " woodcock owl ") and usually departing in spring. Nests in 

 ordinary seasons are of comparatively rare occurrence in Great 

 Britain, but in consequence of the vast multiplication of their 

 favourite food, the vole, these owls have not only arrived in 

 unusual numbers but have remained and bred freely all over the 

 district affected, laying from 8 to 13 eggs (though Newton in 

 his edition of Yarrell's " British Birds " mentions seven as an 

 unusual number) and rearing more than one brood. The shepherd 



