[obol] Long or Short? Eared Owls & Great Horned

[R ARCHER]

Hi:

I find the Short Eared as having the black wing tips and less obvious 
barring on the flight feathers.  The trick can also be splitting Great 
Horned and Long Eared.  Long Eared have longer outer secondaries, which give 
them that bulge look.  Great Horned seems barred with no streaking and the 
LE can be streaked and barred.  LE can  look mottled with this combo. I try 
to be careful calling any of these guys with your typical flying view at 
dusk.

Bob Archer
PDX


>From: Lars and Gail Norgren <gnorgren at earthlink.net>
>To: obol <obol at lists.oregonstate.edu>
>Subject: [obol] Long or Short? Eared Owls
>Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2006 21:06:50 -0800
>
>       While attaching a Nordman Fir
>to the top of our car at Bays Farm
>2km nw of Banks(Wash.Co.)just before
>5pm today one of my teenaged sons said
>a bird was approaching us. I turned around
>and in the gloaming dismissed it as a
>Red-tailed Hawk. Linus was not nearly so
>dismissive, and proved to be right. Some
>species of Asio was passing close to us.
>I have seen innumerable Short-eared owls
>in flight, but the two Long=eared Owls
>I have seen flying through the decades were
>in dense woods and afforded only glimpses.
>The wing=load on Short=eared Owls is so
>light that the wings seem to make the body
>bounce up and down as they flap. This motion
>on the bird I saw this evening was much more
>subdued. Is anyone out there familiar with the
>flight pattern of the Long=eared Owl?
>      The wing area of the two species seems to
>be similar, but according to Sibley the Long=
>eared is almost 30% lighter. I would expect
>its flight to be even bouncier than the Short=
>eared, but this is likely a classic case of me
>over=intellectualizing. This individual didn't
>seem to be hunting. Perhaps a Short=eared Owl
>in purposeful travel is capable of a more planar
>trajectory. Given the large number of Short-eared
>sightings the past week to ten days this species
>came immediately to mind, but the habitat was
>a bit off. The Christmas tree farm is on a fairly
>high ridge, separated from adjacent lowlands by
>forest. The bird in question came out of trees
>and after crossing the plantation it disappeared
>behind more trees.
>      The light was not yet hopelessly dim, but I
>have owned my current binocular for only 5 weeks
>and haven't yet lost the lens caps. I foolishly
>put them on a few hours earlier after an unsuccessful
>search for Horned Larks. Most of the time I could
>have been looking at the owl was spent taking the
>caps off.    Lars Norgren MANNING OREGON
>
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