Short-eared Owl

In the popular imagination, owls are often regarded as denizens of dense and spooky woods, hiding by day and hooting it up in the darkest night. The Short-eared Owl breaks all of these norms. It lives in wide-open spaces — fields, marshes, tundra — and often hunts in broad daylight.

Exploiting this open-country niche, the Short-eared has become one of the most widespread owls. In North America, its breeding range extends across Alaska and Canada and south into the northern states. At the southern edge of that range, it has declined in numbers. Today, in most of