Short-eared owls winter on Seacoast

I’ve received quite a few non-material Christmas presents this year that involve an owl. A poet friend sent me a poem called “Short-Eared Owl.” It was about the fires burning in California, but the bleak landscape he describes in the poem could also be a salt marsh in winter: “the sky was white / there was a long old fence / and a blanched yellow field / and an old halfburned barn…and there was an owl / perched there / one of those fence field highway owls / with a white saucer face / and yellow eyes / in glaring black rings / and tanwhite wings / striped miraculously / it ruffled its feathers / then dropped / spread and swooping / lazily / to the bleached paper grass / killed something / small and grey.” Receiving this poem was my first owl-themed gift.

The second gift was seeing my first short-eared owl in many years while out birding. I love short-eared owls. Unlike the more common barred and great-horned owls, short-eared owls (or shorties as birders call them) are owls of open fields. According to Sibley’s Guide to Birds: “Short-eared owls can be found in any open expanse — marshes, fields, prairie and tundra, coursing in search of rodents, often in daylight.” They are also our most aerial owl and can easily be confused with a northern harrier (the common marsh hawks that spend much of their time gliding over marshes). I saw my first short-eared owls ever out west in the high desert of eastern Oregon where they would nest in the open scrub.

Most short-eared owls in New England are winter residents, migrating back up to Canada and the Arctic in spring. There are only four states in the Northeast (New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Massachusetts) that have breeding populations of short-eared owls. The greatest threat to these breeding populations is loss of habitat — the large open fields where they breed are prime locations for a number of human activities — agriculture, grazing, recreation and development.

I checked in with my owl researcher friend Scott Rashid about identification hints for this bird, in particular how to distinguish it from a barred owl. He wrote back: “Short-eared owls are one of my favorite species! If you take the time to watch it hunt, you will see it hunting over an open field, where barred owls hunt more in the woods or on the edge of them. Short-eared owls are small mammal and small bird eaters, where barred owls prey upon rabbits, squirrels, reptiles, small animals and birds up to the size of grouse and pheasants. Also barred owls are more gray than brown.” While you might see barred owls out in the woods during the day, you won’t see them gliding over a field — as Scott said, take the time to watch the owl hunt. Look for those black-rimmed yellow eyes in a pale facial disk (mentioned in the above poem) and you’ll know you’re seeing a short-eared.

My final gift that involved owls was meeting an enthusiastic young photographer, Martin Culpepper, at the same time I saw this owl. Martin is 14 and has been doing nature photography for three years (since he was 11!!). Martin had been following the short-eared owl for awhile. Here’s what he had to say about his first sighting: “I got it! It’s been about three years and I have taken pictures of 12 great horned owls, 7 snowy owls, 5 screeches, 2 barred owls and one great grey, but yesterday I finally was able to get the short-eared. This has by far been the hardest owl for me to photograph, but yesterday he made an appearance. A small group of photographers and myself were watching this awesome raptor as it swept a field for voles. This has been a very memorable day.” This was a gift to me because I worry that Americans (not just young people), but all of us in this age of technology, are becoming so disconnected from nature. Finding such enthusiasm in a young person, being outside in the bracing cold and wind with fellow nature enthusiasts, gives me hope for the future of nature — what a wonderful Christmas present!

Check out Martin's photos @martinz.photos on Instagram; on Facebook at Martin Culpepper Nature Photography.

Susan Pike, a researcher and an environmental sciences and biology teacher at St. Thomas Aquinas High School, welcomes your ideas for future column topics. She may be reached at spike3116@gmail.com.