Sergey Dereliev

Mid-sized and ground-nesting owl, occurring in a wide range of open habitats, such as marshes, grasslands, and tundra. It has wide distribution across the Holarctic, the Neotropics and some Pacific Islands. In Europe, the species is well presented in NW, N & E regions, it has patchy distribution in C Europe and is almost absent in the S (Keller et al. 2020).

Intra-European partial migrant. N populations fully migratory, those to the S thought to be largely resident.

Its population trend in Europe is fluctuating. Evaluated as “Least Concern” (BirdLife International 2021).

Season of assessment

B

Population trendFluctuating
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		169000-284000,215000
Red List categoryLC
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Short-eared Owl

General movement pattern in migratory populations follows NE – SW direction.

Most birds breeding in Fennoscandia & E Europe (including NW Russia; Noskov et al. 2016) take mainly SW routes, wintering in W & SW Europe and W Mediterranean region, some reaching N & NW Africa and the Canary Is. Other part of the Fennoscandian population move S & SE towards SE Europe and SW Russia, sometimes even E – reaching W Siberia.

Those birds prone to migrate from the British Isles breeders take S routes towards W & SW Europe, as far S as NW Africa. Icelandic population migrates SE to the British Isles. W European and most of C European population move SW towards SW Europe and the W Mediterranean region. A smaller number of birds of those breeding in C Europe take SE routes, some of them reaching even Asia Minor.

Recoveries by Condition for Short-eared Owl

Currently protected species in Europe. N Europe holds the bulk of encounters (ca. 45%), considerable amount of them also in NW, W & C Europe (49% combined). The encounters mainly come from May-Jul – ca. 53%, most ringed birds are juveniles.

The encounters based on dead birds kept their share stable until 1991 (86-88%), then decreased to 53% after 1991. Those obtained due to shooting markedly decreased over time – from 35% pre-1960 to 2% after 1991. The encounters based on alive birds considerably increased from ca. 3% pre-1960 to 44%, mostly due to ringing encounters. Traffic is among the currently important negative factors (17% of all cases).

Annual Movements for Short-eared Owl

Post-breeding movements of the birds breeding in Fennoscandia and adjacent regions start in Aug and last until late Oct; their wintering grounds in W & SW Europe, as well as Mediterranean region, are reached as early as Aug-Sep, but in most cases – in Oct-Nov. Return movements to the breeding sites take place in Mar-Apr, lasting until May in the northernmost populations; some encounters of birds still present in mid-May on their Mediterranean wintering grounds indicate late migration.

A juvenile marked in Jul in Iceland has been encountered in UK in late Oct the same year.

A breeding female was satellite tracked from Scotland via SW UK (early Nov) to cross the English Channel (ca. 500 km) in just six hours, then W France, Gibraltar (late Nov) and finally reaching Morocco where overwintered (BTO 2021).

Connectivity by Month by Region for Short-eared Owl

Populations fluctuate in response to prey availability, hence nomadism in search of food, migration, and juvenile dispersal may be confused (Wiggins et al. 2020). Change in migration patterns has been shown for the European populations, the ringing recovery distances generally increasing through to the 1960-70s and then subsequently declining (Calladine et al. 2012).

Longest-distance movements are performed by the population in N Europe. Birds breeding in N Europe start their post-breeding dispersal as early as late summer, migratory movements lasting mainly until mid-autumn. They are encountered at their wintering grounds in W & S Europe from late summer (at earliest), predominantly in mid- to late autumn. Return migration is evident mainly early- to mid-spring, the breeding sites located in the extreme N are reached in late May.

Boris Nikolov

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
2020 . European Breeding Bird Atlas 2: Distribution, Abundance and Change. European Bird Census Council & Lynx Edicions, BarcelonaEditor(s): Keller, V., S. Herrando, P. Voříšek, et al.
BirdLife International 2021 . Species factsheet: Asio flammeus. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 08/08/2021.
Calladine, J., du Feu, C. & du Feu, R. 2012 . Changing migration patterns of the Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus in Europe: an analysis of ringing recoveries. J Ornithol 153: 691–698
Noskov, G. A., Rymkevich, T. A., Gaginskaya, A. R. 2016 . Migration of Birds on Northwest Russia. Non-Passerines. ANO LA “Professional”, Saint Petersburg
Wiggins, D. A., D. W. Holt, and S. M. Leasure 2020 . Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World Link to Article (DOI: https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.sheowl.01) Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA

Back to Analysis