Short Eared Owls Our Winter Visitors

Loch Leven is a wonderful spot for wildlife, particularly birds. In my many walks around the loch I had spotted 99 different bird species until the evening of February 6th when I was lucky enough to see a pair of Short-Eared Owls patrolling the water's edge. What a bird to be the 100th!
Owls are often sought but little seen bird for me, and for fairly obvious reasons: they tend to hunt at night and remain very well-hidden during the day. Short-Eared Owls buck that trend and tend to hunt during daylight, though often at dawn and dusk. Despite that, they tend to remain winter visitors in Great Britain, so despite their preference for a reasonable time of day to hunt, their low numbers and fleeting visits make them a wonderful bird to actually find. I've been very lucky to have seen these birds on twelve of the fourteen days I've been going to watch them, and I'll be looking out for them until they depart the loch.
Hope you enjoy the video!
Soundtrack Credits:
Mindfulness, by Aleks Michalski (03:25 - 11:50)
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Slow Movement in Light - Ethereal Ephemera (clip, 11:59 - 16:10)
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