Short-eared Owl Fledglings Galore!

I’ve said before that this has been a banner year for breeding Short-eared Owls in northern Utah. Here’s more proof.

Following are some of the fledgling Short-eared Owls I photographed last week. These owls range in age, flight skills and approachability but all of them are fledglings that have recently left the nest. Each was photographed last week near a road from my pickup in northern Utah.

 

short-eared owl 3410 ron dudley

Some of the young birds I found were out in the open and conspicuously perched while others were…

 

 

short-eared owl 5122 ron dudley

about as buried in vegetation as they could get.

 

 

short-eared owl 4940 ron dudley

One morning I stumbled upon at least ten young owls dispersed over a sagebrush-covered hillside next to the road. This image and the following two show some of those birds.

 

 

short-eared owl 4931 ron dudley

With so many fledglings in the same small area they must have been from multiple nests.

 

 

short-eared owl 4988 ron dudley

This one was fully capable of flight, though many (perhaps all) of the others were too.

 

 

short-eared owl 5128 ron dudley

This young owl was right on the edge of the road I was driving. The day before I found a road-killed adult Short-eared Owl in this same area so it made me apprehensive for the safety of the youngster to see it along the road.

 

 

short-eared owl 4780 ron dudley

Thankfully most of them stayed hidden in the vegetation but still very near the road.

 

 

short-eared owl 3762 ron dudley

I couldn’t get a clear shot of many of them…

 

 

short-eared owl 3949 ron dudley

and some were in fairly unattractive settings. I caught this one in mid-yawn.

 

 

short-eared owl 3714 ron dudley

This youngster was perched on wind-blown tumbleweeds blown up against a fence. Given my past experiences with owls of various species hung up on barbed wire it always makes me a little nervous to see owls, especially young ones, so close to what some refer to as “devil wire” but in this area barbed wire is ubiquitous and unavoidable. Thankfully I haven’t found any owls entangled in it so far this year.

I couldn’t be happier about the apparent breeding success of Short-eared Owls in northern Utah this year. I wish each and every one of them well.

Ron

 

43 Comments

  1. Wow Ron!!!!! These are just beautiful shots! Just magnificent! Thanks so much!

  2. Hello Ron: Great pics and beautiful!! Say, I was wondering why no exif info on these pics? I look at each of your photos and bounce it off against the data you post in hopes of bettering my settings (to get shots like yours).

  3. Beautiful shots Ron.

  4. Steven E Hunnicutt

    Buried in vegation is a great picture, the eyes just great.

  5. Fantastic photos! Do you submit the road kills to the website that tracks them – location, type of road, date/time, etc. I think it’s called roadkillgarneau after the assistant prof. who initiated the program – Danielle Garneau is her name, she is at Plattsburgh in NY state… I was never able to use the epicollect website – I am a smart phone moron 😣

  6. Charlotte Norton

    Wonderful Ron!

  7. Also, I purchased your signed burrowing owl picture at the Hawk Watch fundraiser s few months ago.
    Tell me, where was that picture taken ?

    • Thanks for supporting HWI, Karen.

      That photo was taken along the Antelope Island causeway. A few years ago there was an active burrow right next to the first one of those concrete structures along the road going west from the entrance. I spent many, many hours with those adorable young owls and over a period of several weeks I really grew to love them. Sadly, one of the parents was killed by a car but by then I think the youngsters were old enough to survive.

      If I remember correctly the image I donated to HWI was the third one from the left in the Burrowing Owl panel on my rotating banner at the top of my blog. I hope you enjoy it.

  8. These are wonderful!! Thank you for sharing! !

  9. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
    I would have been smiling too broadly to take photos. And am so glad that your instincts are better.

    • My instincts fail more often than I’d like, EC. It happened again this morning with a couple of these young owls. I went with my instinct and this time it wasn’t a good choice. Part of the game…

  10. OMG Ron!!! Soooo cute!!!! I want one!! I want one!!!!! Adorable, all .. but that last one just did me in!!!! How fun!!!!!!!

  11. Beautiful photos. I would be to busy watching to remember to photograph. I hope their home stays undeveloped. I hate to see how northern Utah is eaten up by human habitat.

    • “I hate to see how northern Utah is eaten up by human habitat”

      Me too, April. The mantra of this state is growth, development and profits for the few. Everything else be damned.

  12. Patty Chadwick

    Wonderful series of images…not too crazy about the last…too close to that damned Devil’s wire…scary!

  13. I join you in wishing the Owls well. It is nice to see that they now have a good population in northern Utah. SEOs have very expressive faces that are fun to look at.

  14. Such cute little guys. Love the expressions….which make me smile also. Thanks

  15. These are super images Ron! Really great to hear that there are so many SEOWs, they are declining in many areas, so this makes me very happy to hear.

  16. Cool! Beautiful shots of beautiful birds! 🙂 LOVE owls and can watch them for long periods of time. Glad they are doing so well this year. 🙂

  17. LOVE these shots! Juvies are just too darn cute! THANKS! (Sorry, hurty hands today…or would say more.)

  18. Show me an owl, and I start to grin, it’s reflexive for me. I started grinning with the first image,
    and continued to the last, and in fact, that smile has yet to leave my face. No matter how my
    day is going, if I look at the pictures in your blog, or in Mia’s, it brightens my moments… So, on
    this special day, I say thank you for all those smiles, and I look forward to having more in the
    future. ;-))

    Take care today, be safe, stay well, and a reminder to all of us to remember, “FREEDOM IS NOT FREE…..”

  19. Love your photos of these young Short Ears. I keep hoping to see one!

  20. Man, what fun!! The vole population must have exploded!
    Great shots and interesting poses.
    Thanks for sharing.

Comments are closed