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Short-eared Owls are medium-sized owls. Their plumage is highly cryptic. The two sexes are indistinguishable in the field. They have a prominent creamy facial mask with a black and white edge. Light-grey tufts of feathers between the eyes can give the impression of an "X" when seen from straight in front. The rest of the front is creamy/buff with heavy dark brown-grey streaking. The chest is buff, heavily streaked with dark brown/grey, becoming paler with less streaking towards the belly. The upperparts, including the folded wings, are creamy/buff with dark-brown scalloping. The flight feathers are boldly barred cinnamon with dark brown/grey and the uppertail is also boldly barred. The underwing, together with belly and vent, is pale-grey/buff. The tips of the primaries are black. Short-eared Owls can raise their short ear tufts, but most of the time these are invisible. The irises are yellow. The bill is dark-grey, legs and feet are grey. Fledgling young are grey to dark-grey, with some vermiculation and with strong grey barring on the wing coverts. Only the upper half of their facial mask is dark; the lower half is light-grey.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Long-eared Owl is available HERE .

There are 11 extant races of Long-eared Owls which, altogether, occur over a very wide range that encompasses most of North America, parts of South America, much of Eurasia and small parts of Africa.

In Europe and Asia only Short-eared Owls of nominate race "flammeus" are found. They are sedentary in parts of central England, along the Benelux and Danish North Sea coastline, eastward to the northern German Baltic Sea coastline, and in far south-eastern Europe, along the northern coastline of the Black Sea towards the Caspian Sea (except for the highest parts of the Caucasus mountain range). Elsewhere, they are sedentary only in small pockets in central Iberia and in the Hungarian Puszta. Elsewhere in central Europe they overwinter or are found only during migration. In northern Europe (Scandinavia, except for a narrow far-northern coastal fringe, and European Russia) they are breeding migrants. In Iceland they are sedentary on the coastal fringe and will disperse farther inland during the breeding season.

Short-eared Owls have a preference for bogs, heathland, grassland and shrubs along meadows.

Race "flammeus"