46 
The Short-Eared Owl 
Nesting 
Place 
a forest or in wooded districts. It is preeminently a bird of the flat, i 
open country, frequenting the marshes and grassy meadows of the tem- 
perate zone and the tundra of the North, or residing and hunting along 
the inside of the beaches of the coast where the growth is low. 
Always keeping on or close to the earth, it chooses a nestingrplace 
in some open spot in a meadow or marsh. While breeding most com- 
monly north of the United States, it nests locally in small numbers within 
our borders, having been recorded as near New 
York as Montauk Point, at the eastern end of 
Long Island. The nesting-period varies with the 
locality, from the latter part of March and April through May in the 
more southern part of its range to well into June in the more northern 
part. 
The situation is usually on the ground in a swampy place, and gen- 
erally close to the water, the nest placed in a bunch of thick grass or 
under the shelter of a low bush in some elevated spot. Some nests have, ; 
however, been found in coarse grass and bushes, or on knolls in a wet, 
boggy place ; among the thick sedges growing along the edge of a prairie- 
pond ; rarely raised a little from the ground in a clump of low bushes ; 
and, more rarely still, in a shallow burrow in a bank, the latter situation 
being recorded from Alaska. I have found a nest in the Magdalen Islands 
which was placed in a tuft of coarse grass growing on a tiny islet in 
one of the innumerable ponds of the vast East Point marshes, and shel- 
tered by a low growth of gooseberry-bushes. 
The nest itself is a rough structure, hardly worthy of the name. A 
few rank grasses, loosely coiled together, or a depression made in a tuft 
of dead grass or under a bush, with sometimes a few sticks and feathers, f 
and occasionally with a scanty lining of fine dead grasses, suffice to form i 
a resting-place for the eggs and a home for the young. 
The eggs vary in number from four to. nine, are white, with occa- 
sionally a creamy tinge, and are nearly spherical in shape. The deposi- 
tion of the eggs is rather irregular, and incubation seems to begin with 
the laying of the first one. Young and eggs in 
various stages of incubation may therefore be 
looked for in the same nest. One nest noted held 
two eggs on which the bird was sitting, and eight days later contained 
but one additional egg. The birds are very close sitters, and will never 
flush from the nest until almost walked upon. The females seem to 
perform all the duties of incubation. The period of incubation is stated 
to be about three weeks, and the young stay in or near the nest till well 
grown. Like other owlets they are, when newly hatched, clothed in a 
thick coat of white or whitish down. One brood in a season is usually 
all raised by a single pair, and frequently the family party remains to- 
gether till late in the fall. 
Like others of the family, the Short-eared Owl is secretive in its 
habits except when hunting, and in spite of the open country in which it 
Eggs and 
Young 
