The short-eared owl is about the same size as a barn owl and is mottled, yellow-brown above, paler underneath and has dark circles around its intense sulphur-yellow eyes. Short ‘ear tufts’ provide its common name, but are generally not visible. Short-eared owls are distinctive in flight, with the wings ‘pushed forward’ on deep, wing beats in a way that is often described as rowing in slow-motion. The upper tail has four or five prominent bars on a sandy background. 

Behaviour

Generally quiet, but the most familiar call, given by both sexes, is a hoarse, high-pitched bark (‘cheh-ef’), heard mainly on breeding grounds. The male’s territorial song is a pulsing “voo-hoo-hoo“, resembling an old steam engine.  

The short-eared owl is a specialist predator of small mammals, predominantly voles, with field voles forming approximately 90% of their prey. Quartering flight involves a mixture of flapping and gliding, the bird sometimes hovering, before dropping down onto an unsuspecting small mammal or bird. 

Males perform courtship and territorial aerial displays by rising quickly with rhythmic and exaggerated wing beats, hovering, gliding down, and rising again, often 200-400m above ground. Wing claps, in bursts of 2-6 per second. The flight often ends with a spectacular descent where the male holds his wings aloft and shimmies rapidly to the ground. 

Size

• Length: 34-42cm
• Wingspan 90-105cm
• Average weight: 260-330g

Status

Classified in the UK as Amber under the Birds of Conservation Concern 4: the Red List for Birds (2015); Protected by The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Short-eared Owl populations are still threatened by persecution, loss of habitat and fluctuations in food availability, especially the field vole. 

Distribution

Short-eared owls breed in open country in Great Britain, primarily in northern and eastern England, Wales and Scotland. However, the breeding range has contracted northwards and the species is becoming increasingly restricted to upland areas, such as the Southern Uplands of Scotland, the southern and eastern foothills of the Grampians and Cairngorms and some Scottish Islands, such as Orkney, Mull and Arran. This northwards retreat has virtually seen the disappearance of the population that once bred around the East Anglian coast and south to the northern shores of Kent. Scotland now holds about 77% of the British breeding population.

When to see

All year round

Facts

• Short-eared owls are one of the few owls that nest on the ground. The nest is located within grass or herbaceous ground cover and is created by the female, who makes a scrape and then lines it with grass stems and feathers she plucks from her own breast. 

• Short-eared owls begin calling while still inside the egg. This high pitched sound will continue after hatching. At around seven days of age, the nestling’s voice will become somewhat lower in pitch. 

• Research in Scotland has revealed that short-eared owls tend to migrate relatively short distances when compared to birds from Scandinavia and Central Europe.