The QUEST for short-eared owls

Wow, this was a hard one. I went on three trips to try and find these guys. The first two trips were planned using some outdated information and so for both trips we ended up going home without catching a glimpse of one of these guys.

With some more recent insight I planned a third trip. I drove to the area and began the search once again. The weather turned out to be nice and due to that I got to see a lot of birds. Some of the neat ones were snow bunting, horned larks, pipits of some kind (maybe water pipits), red-tailed and northern harrier hawks and a red-bellied woodpecker. I found two locations that looked promising but I was torn between both and as the sun was setting on me rapidly I ended up driving back and forth between both. As the light was almost completely gone I just came back to one of the locations and there were at least three short-eared owls hunting in a fallow field. I quickly got my camera ready and tried to capture them in flight. They flew so fast and very erratic making it virtually impossible to catch. I eventually surrendered the idea and just sat there and watched them. It was very cool and very satisfying to finally find them. Since I didn't get any good pictures I feel like the best I can do is direct you to some amazing photos. Here is a link you should check out of this guys website with some amazing pictures of a short-eared owl having some lunch. Hopefully I will be able to provide some photos after I come back from trip four (ha ha ha).

Short-eared owls are a species at risk and they are protected under the fish and wildlife conservation act. Christmas bird counts suggest that their population declined 23% over the past decade alone. Their current population is estimated at 2.4 million but continues to decline due to urban expansion and increasingly intensive agricultural practices. Hopefully their population decline subsides because it would be a shame to lose this amazing species.