One of the things I love most about northern parts of the US is the variety in weather. This image of a short-eared owl was shot in northern Montana on a day the calendar labeled as spring. The snow didn’t last long, but the morning I shot this the landscape looked like a winter wonderland.
Short-eared owls are fairly plentiful in Montana as they are in other parts of the US. They depend on open grasslands to survive. The more we build and mow, the fewer places these magnificent birds have to live. My good friend Denver Holt of the Owl Research Institute (ORI) knows these birds well, and his studies are essential to understanding how human activities affect them. If you want know more about the short-eared owl and other owls, please visit the ORI website and make sure you support their work with a donation.