![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/short-eared-owl-7149-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"short-eared-owl-7149-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nThis is the same male Short-eared Owl I posted a single photo of two days ago. Reader Dan Gleason asked a question in his comment on that post that prompted me to research my other\u00a0photos of the bird. I couldn’t find one like he was requesting to see but I\u00a0did stumble across these images illustrating an interesting behavior.\u00a0Years ago I documented this same bird performing a similar behavior but\u00a0that\u00a0was a different\u00a0event and these photos are new to my blog.<\/p>\n
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1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Occasionally the male would catch a vole and eat it himself but usually he brought it to the nest for his mate and the two youngsters (I couldn’t see the nest and I wasn’t close to it but I knew where it was at the base of a sagebrush).\u00a0As he would come in low with the vole I could sometimes get many shots of him\u00a0on his approach. I usually had low light and it shows in these photos.<\/p>\n Here he has his eyes on my pickup as he approaches.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n But now his concentration has drifted downward to the sagebrush sticking up\u00a0in front of him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n That sagebrush is his intended temporary perch.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n He landed on the sagebrush but only for a couple of seconds – in fact his stay was so brief\u00a0he kept his wings out the entire time. Then in the wink of an eye he…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n transferred the vole to his beak and took off in a single fluid motion. He did it so quickly I missed the transfer. From here he took the vole to his family at the nest far out of frame to the left.<\/p>\n What made this behavior so interesting for me is that he followed the same routine every time be brought a vole in. I saw him do it dozens of times over several days and each time he approached the general area of the nest with the vole in his talons, landed on\u00a0one of two favorite perches for a few seconds (the other\u00a0perch was a metal post out of frame to the right) and then transferred the vole from talons to beak before delivering the meal.<\/p>\n I have a theory as to why he always followed this unusual pattern instead of just flying to the nest with the vole in his talons. Twice I was in a position to see (through my long lens) him deliver the vole to his mate on the ground in front of the nest. Both times she was\u00a0quite aggressive and threatening toward him and he was\u00a0very timid being that close to her. He was obviously afraid of her (she’s significantly larger).<\/p>\n Like most raptors\u00a0Short-eared Owls prefer to carry prey in their talons instead of their beaks (doing so is more aerodynamically efficient, it’s a more secure way of holding it and that way the possibly still-living prey doesn’t threaten their eyes). But just before he got to the nest this owl always<\/em> landed briefly on a nearby\u00a0perch where he transferred the rodent to his beak so he could more safely and quickly drop the vole a few inches in front of her and vamoose quickly (he always beat a hasty retreat). When raptors try to release prey from their talons they sometimes have to struggle to “unimpale” the prey from\u00a0those sharp\u00a0talons. I’ve seen\u00a0Red-tailed Hawks lift and shake their\u00a0foot slightly\u00a0before the prey item\u00a0would drop\u00a0off (one time\u00a0the prey was a very sticky duckling). They can reliably drop prey from their beak in an instant.<\/p>\n So that’s my theory, for what it’s worth. Right or wrong it seems logical to me.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This owl seemed to be as much of a creature of habit as I am. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/short-eared-owl-7151-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"short-eared-owl-7151-ron-dudley\\"")
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