Reader photo: From a reliable spot for Short-eared Owl, a close-up of the grassland predator

In this era of eBird, birding listservs and forums, and the BirdsEye app, finding Short-eared Owl isn’t especially difficult. Plus, the species is widespread, it prefers grasslands and other open areas, and it often hunts by day — all qualities that make a search easier than a quest for, say, nocturnal owls that reside in remote forests.

Robert Thomas took this image in early January and posted it to the BirdWatching Flickr group. The bird was at Brunswick Point, in southwestern British Columbia, a popular birding spot south of Vancouver and a reliable site for the species in winter. (It’s not far from two of our Hotspots Near You — Boundary Bay Dykes and the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary.

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