Quite a few years ago, while standing on a hill on an adjoining farm, I
observed a coyote flush a Short-eared Owl from a small, rock filled sink in the
middle of a 150 acre grain field. Ever since then, I have checked that small
sink once or twice each winter, in hopes it might again be used as an owl
roost. This morning seemed like a good day to give it a try. I got nearly on
the sink and stopped. I could see field rocks piled near the middle, with dun
colored Johnson grass along the outer parameters, where it met the gray bean
stubble field. Didn’t see any owls. Short-eared Owls might not move until
you’re nearly on them, and I didn’t want to pick my way through the 70 foot
long oval of tall grass, so I called Bridge away from the hole he was digging a
little piece back and pointed at the grass. Moments after Bridge went in, 2
Short-eared Owls came out. They flew lazily over the next hill and disappeared
from view. I walked up the hill and crossed onto the next farm, a corn stubble
field with young wheat. There was a weedy waterway a short distance out in it.
I approached the waterway and the owls flushed again, returning in the
direction they had come from. I headed back. By the time I reached the hill top
where I could see the small sink where they had originally flushed, Bridge was
nearly there. He flushed them again. Without me nearby, they refused to be
intimidated by Bridge and kept putting down again in nearly the same place
right after Bridge would get them up. I got my scope on one, but Bridge flushed
it again before I could get a picture. They finally got sick of Bridge
bothering them and headed to 2 separate spots of cover some way further on. I
might have been able to flush them yet again, but it seemed like a futile
cause, because I can’t get flight shots with my equipment, and the terrain
allowed them to drop down below my horizon every time I flushed them.
The experience left me dissatisfied, so this afternoon I decided to go
to a different potential owl roost site without Bridge along - Parsons Pond.
The nearly mile wide basin offers a better chance of an owl putting back down
still in one’s field of view than the alternating hills and sinks near home. I
flushed 5 Short-eard Owls from almost exactly the same spot where there had
been a December owl roost a few years ago. And as I had hoped, when they put
back down, 4 out of the 5 were still in view. I got one picture with 3 in a
frame and was able to walk up a bit closer on one of them than I did the last
time I had this opportunity. I think that was 2011, but will have to check. 4
pictures with ebird report.
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S40893247 ;
<http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S40893247>
Frank Lyne
frank@xxxxxxxxxxx - near Dot in Logan County, KY
