Short-eared Owl.
This little owl, so far as my observation has extended, seems peculiar to the coast, where among the reeds and thick marshes of the shores and neighboring islands it finds a covert from the noisy world. Having found such a place they, unlike all other New England owls, build in colonies. A locality not far from here has been from my earliest recollection a breeding place for these owls. The situation is most desirable, being a meadow or flat level with the coast, over which the tide completely flows, but leaves it entirely dry when it recedes. This meadow is covered with a coarse grass and surrounded by tall brakes and reeds. In these latter they gather together the remains of last year’s frost-bitten reeds and place them in a promiscuous heap on a tussock. This is afterward hollowed out and the set of eggs is then laid. Six is the largest number I ever found, with the exception of one nest, in which I found ten; but these were laid by two females who sat together on the same nest in perfect harmony. Incubation was difficult to determine, but I cannot make it out to be more than twenty-one days. If any of your readers would be kind enough to give me the exact time it would be gratefully received. No owl is more interesting to watch. Take some dark, cloudy day in May or June, repair to their haunts and they will be found lightly skimming over the surface of the ground seeking for food left by the receding tide, or again diligently searching the immediate upland for any unwary mouse. Or watch them again in the deepening twilight, as silently, without a single note, they flit past, seeming but a passing thought or fanciful vision, until you hear from the shore the shrill cry of a Tern or Sandpiper in his talons; then you awaken to the fact that it is a rapacious bird acting well its part in nature’s great drama, “The Survival of the Fittest.”—F. H. Carpenter, Rehobeth, Mass.