Short-eared Owl

How to recognise it

• Very long, narrow and fairly pointed wings with black wingtips
• Pale face and yellow eyes ringed with black, ear tufts usually not visible
• Coarsely streaked breast on a buff ground, contrasting with the pale belly
• Dark crescent-shaped patch at the wrist, male and female alike in colour

Call and song

The male's song, often given high up in flight, is a rapid series of deep po-po-po, usually 6 to 20 syllables. The female begs with a hoarse, drawn-out tjerr-app and gives a rasping tjeff-tjeff-tjeff in alarm. It also claps its wings together in quick succession, a rattling sound like a flapping flag. It is silent in its winter quarters.

Where and when

It is a partial migrant that breeds in Sweden, mainly in Norrland, and also on clear-cuts in central Sweden, on southern Öland and on bare archipelago islands in the south. It returns in April to May and is reported most in May and October. Some birds winter in southern and central Sweden, north to about the latitude of Småland. It is red-listed as Near Threatened and declining.

Food and behaviour

It mainly catches small rodents, especially voles, and also other small animals as well as birds and their young. It hunts mostly at dusk and in the morning and is more active by day than many other owls. Its flight is light and almost slow-motion, often gliding on stiff wings. The nest is a hollow in the ground, and the female incubates while the male feeds her.