Sunday Shots – Short-eared Owl Edition, 01/25/26

In the early days of this blog, I used to spend a fair amount of time observing and photographing Short-eared Owls (click here or here for examples). But in recent years, readers of the blog may have noticed that for the most part, I’ve stopped photographing SEOWs (other than the odd bird that I might run into from time to time). Back in the day, it was a peaceful endeavor for me, with very few other birders or photographers around. But things changed and all the owl hotspots became jammed with folks who also wanted to see and photograph the owls. This wasn’t for me, so I’ve mostly stayed away and turned my attention to other species. But, this Saturday evening I gave it another shot and went out to the Black Dirt Region to try for Short-eared Owls for the first time in a long while. I got lucky; the owls got up early and it made for excellent evening with plenty of action. There were a few other folks there as well, but it wasn’t loaded. It was an enjoyable evening, and I was happy to get my first decent SEOW shots in quite a while, but I don’t imagine I’ll get back into it like I was back in the day.