Short-eared Owl Delivering Food To The Nest

In previous posts (here, here and here) about these Short-eared Owls at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge I’ve shown and described snippets of the fascinating behaviors I observed when this male would deliver voles to the female and two youngsters at the nest.  But it struck me that I’ve never put the whole process together in sequence so the behaviors could be fully appreciated so that’s what I’ll attempt to do here.   Most of the images will be different from those in the previous posts. 

 

 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

The male was a tireless and highly skilled hunter and I never saw him with any prey other than voles.  When successful he would always return to the vicinity of the nest and land momentarily on one of two favorite perches – the dark sagebrush at lower right in the above photo or a metal post a few feet from the sagebrush.  Here he’s coming in for a landing on the sagebrush with vole in talons and glances up at me to make sure all is safe.  I really like the intense direct eye contact in the shot. 

 

 

 1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

 Now he’s focused on the sagebrush in order to make a successful landing.

 

 

  1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

This time he stayed perched for less than five seconds and didn’t even pull his wings in against his body – he just kept them out or up while he seemed to contemplate his next move.  And I knew what that next move would be because he always did the same thing – transfer the vole from talons to beak either just before or during take-off to deliver the vole to his family at the nest.  The nest is at the base of another sagebrush a short distance to the left and out of the frame.   

 

 

 1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

So he checks me out once again…

 

 

 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

 and in almost a single fluid motion takes off and transfers the vole from talons to beak… 

 

 

 1/1600, f/5.6, ISO 800, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

 and glances my way one more time as he approaches the nest site. 

 

 

 1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

This is when things get a little dicey for the male (I’ll try to avoid being anthropomorphic but it won’t be easy) – because delivering the vole to the female is a scary proposition.   Here he’s quite close to the nest entrance and as he approaches she becomes very aggressive and he is obviously quite wary of her.  He’s timid and cautious in his approach – after all, due to sexual dimorphism she’s about 20% larger then he is in body mass. 

 

 

 1/1600, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

When he gets close the female aggressively rushes out of the nest at him and he instantly drops the vole.  Usually he would then fly off immediately but this time he timidly stands his ground.  The vole is in the grass directly under  their beaks but the female just glares at him, seeming to dare him to make a move toward the vole.  This time he backed out before flying off and then she grabbed the vole and took it back into the nest and the two chicks. 

 

 

 1/2500, f/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

I only got a good look at one of the youngsters this one time, though it was obvious there were two chicks in the nest.  You’ll notice from the light and my camera settings that this is one of the few times the sun came out while I was photographing these owls so it’s my suspicion that she brought the youngster out into the sun to catch a few warming rays. 

 

 

 1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

This is the other “favorite perch” of the male – an ugly metal post that served no apparent purpose.  I’m glad that he seemed to like the sagebrush as well as he did the post.  Here he’s just landing after returning from one of his rare unsuccessful hunting forays. 

 

 

  1/2000, f/6.3, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc

But more often than not he had a vole with him when he landed on either perch.  In this shot he’s already transferred the vole to his beak and is about to take off for the nest.   (And yes, that’s a bee on the left flying toward the owl).

Preparing this post has brought back a flood of wonderful memories of my times with these owls.  Hopefully there’ll be more of them in the relatively near future.

Ron

Note*** I’d like to make it clear that I was very careful not to disturb these birds.  I was shooting from a road with a long lens (1120 mm with the tc and crop factor of the 7D) and never once got out of my pickup anywhere near the nest.  The owls were acclimated to vehicles on the road and they never seemed disturbed by my presence.  And as always there was no baiting or setting up involved.