Short Eared Owls at Quivera

Short Eared Owl in flight

One item from Quivera National Wildlife Refuge that I have yet to address is that it was the first time I got to photograph Short Eared Owls. I had been seeing a number of people with great pictures of these little owls, and finally got a location of where they could be seen. I was not disappointed!

My very first sighting of the owl sitting in a tree close to the road.

I had been told that along the road north of the Wildlife Drive in late afternoon you can see the Short Eared Owls. Sure enough, as soon as the afternoon wore on and the deer started moving again, the owls appeared. My first glimpse of one was elation! I was just hoping I could get a good shot of the one I saw sitting in a tree near the road. But that was just the beginning.

A few minutes after spotting one, it began flying over the prairie on both sides of the road hunting for dinner. I was very impressed at the flying skills this bird was displaying. They are fast and quick, and tracking them with a camera was like trying to take pictures of swallows. On one side of the road a Northern Harrier was also hunting. While it was flying and hovering the owl came by and buzzed it a couple times and the harrier decided it was time to move to a different area.

The short eared owl buzzed by this northern harrier a couple of times and it moved on to another area.

Moments after the harrier left, the owl came flying right over me.

My camera clicking caught its attention and it just kept flying closer.

Shortly after the harrier left, another short eared owl showed up and they were both flying around over the area. I would guess they are a mated pair. It was a great first experience with these birds.

The pair of short eared owls.

Another interesting thing happened just after the owl started flying. I was not very far from a grove of trees and heard an owl hoot from the grove. Across the road from the trees is a small hill covered with sandhill plums. A few minutes after I heard the first hoot, the owl hooted again and a pack of coyotes took up the song and were howling. As I said, this was not very far away from me and that will give you a little bit of a creepy feeling to have the coyotes howling that close to you. I never did see one of them, but they were certainly there.

After taking pictures of the short eared owl for a while, I decided to move on and head toward the other end of the refuge. When I got to the grove of trees where I heard the owl, I could actually see the great horned owl sitting on a branch. I pointed the camera at it but there were other branches in the way. Just as I was getting focus on the owl it took off. I got a couple of obscured shots as it flew away.

Great Horned Owl flying off behind the trees.

From there, I headed south to make one more pass by the Little Salt Marsh and the Visitors Center on my way home. I saw at lest five more short eared owls on my way off the refuge, and got a couple good shots. I was also treated to a pair of pheasant roosters having a fight about ten feet off the road, but they were in deep grass so I could not get a good shot of it at all. But they were really going at it for a few minutes.

Another short eared owl a few miles from the first pair.

A pheasant fight going on.

This was going on just about ten feet away from my vehicle.

Another pair of short eared owls.

After I left the refuge and got back on paved roads I encountered a field full of Sandhill Cranes and geese. It was just about sundown so the light was not good but I did get a couple of almost decent pictures of them taking to the sky.

Sandhill cranes taking off into the sunset.

Sandhill cranes taking off.

It was a big field and there were hundreds of cranes feeding.