How to Identify aShort-eared Owl
Asio flammeus · 13.4–16.9 in (34–43 cm)
Male vs. female
Male
Streaked buff-brown with a pale facial disc, black eye patches around yellow eyes, and tiny ear tufts rarely visible. Sexes look alike.
Female
Like the male but usually darker and more heavily streaked.
Male photo: Steve Garvie from Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Second photo: Shantanu Kuveskar / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Field marks
- Black smudges around bright yellow eyes
- Buff patch and dark comma at the wrist of each wing
- Floppy, irregular, moth-like flight low over fields
- Ear tufts almost never raised
Similar species
What it sounds like
A raspy barking "keee-yow" and a wheezy scratchy call; males give a soft hooting in display.
Behaviour that gives it away
Hunts in daylight, especially at dawn and dusk, quartering low over grassland where most owls would be roosting.
Habitat & range
Grassland, marshes, tundra, airports and reclaimed land.
When you'll see it
Depending on where in North America you are, it is present all year and a winter visitor.
What it eats
Voles above all, plus other small mammals and birds.
Did you know?
It is one of the most widely distributed birds on earth, found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.
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