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The short-eared owls are migrating birds visiting this area from October through April. They are not nocturnal birds like other owls, but hunt during daytime hours. They look for voles and field mice in open fields with bordering or scattered shrubs and trees. Their short ear tufts are seldom visible, but their light colored face mask and yellow eyes are good identifiers.

You can see them in the Samish Flats in an area that is known to birders as the East 90 and also sometimes on the Padilla shore trail, or at the end of Rawlins Road or on Whidbey Island by Crocket Lake.

Many photographers tak...