The female is brown to protect her while nesting.
Imagine adding this beautiful owl to a birding list as observed. In New York State it is considered Endangered. I doubt many people can find it.
Short-eared Owls (click here) are medium size owls with small ear tufts on the top of the head. They have round, beige facial disks similar to those of barn owls. The underparts are white/buffy (male) or tawny/rust (female), and streaked with brown, while the back is brown and mottled with white. When perched, the wings extend beyond the tail and in flight, the undersides of the wings show dark markings on the wrists and wing tips. The Short-eared Owl's flight is frequently described as "moth or bat-like" because it flies low over grasslands or marshes, moving back and forth with unhurried, irregular wing beats.
Short-eared Owls are the most diurnal of all the northeastern owls. They are most often observed in the late afternoon and at dawn or dusk. These birds eat primarily small mammals, but they occasionally take small birds and the young sometimes eat insects. When hunting, they dive from perches or fly low over the ground and pounce on prey from above, sometimes hovering briefly before they drop....
...Although there are scattered breeding records in the east as far south as Virginia, New York is at the southern edge of this owl's breeding range. Northern populations are believed to be highly migratory, and there is a marked increase in the number of birds in New York in the fall and spring. Short-eared Owls are more common as winter residents in New York State. As breeders they are very rare, being largely limited to the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain Valleys, the Great Lakes plains and the marshes of Long Island's south shore....
Look at that map. The Short Eared Owl is not only endangered in the State of New York, but, the entire country of the USA. The bird needs to be federally listed and a plan to return populations to the USA must be engaged. It is not okay to eliminate species from an entire country because they are largely metropolitan throughout the world. Canada does not have these problems and WINTERING OVER GROUNDS are just as important as breeding grounds.
