Subject: [Tweeters] Umptanum Short-eared Owls
Date: Tue May 5 23:30:41 PDT 2020
From: Scott Ramos - lsr at ramoslink.info

We felt really lucky to have witnessed the courting behaviors of the Northern Harriers, described earlier. But, there was more good luck to come. When the male Harrier was back cruising the sage where it all started, a Short-eared Owl appeared from beyond the horizon. Often, when these two species hunt the same area, there can be friction, but on this occasion their interactions seemed almost friendly: the two birds approached, then turned in tandem, flying almost a duet, separated, then made a few more similar passes before the harrier left the area. After a couple of solo circuits in the same territory, the owl started what seemed to be a display flight, with wings reaching very high on the upstroke, not so much on the downstroke, very butterfly-like. It flew like this continuously, almost in a constant direction, slowly gaining altitude all the time. Eventually, it turned back toward the area in which it had started this flight pattern, still gaining altitude, and still with the same flapping style as before. At some point, we realized that it was vocalizing at the same time, giving a series of 15-20 hoots in rapid succession, the whole sequence of hoots lasting about 5 seconds (see checklist for audio: https://ebird.org/checklist/S68293441). This sequence would be repeated every minute or so, sometimes less, as it continued its ascent. Overall, we heard it do many dozens of sequences of these calls. Again, it returned to the area where we could still see it, but with more difficulty because by now it was several hundred meters above us and the light was fading. It then continued this flight style, hooting, and flew perhaps a mile or more to the south. I lost it in the grey sky but Dave was able to stay on until it made a turn and flew almost all the way back to us, climbing ever higher, now just a speck. We finally lost sight of it completely as it was almost straight above us, but we could still hear the call, faintly. Then, from behind us, another owl flew over the same grounds where all the action started and continued a more normal, fairly low cruising flight, heading northward until it disappeared from view.

Scott Ramos
Seattle