Understanding the habitat requirements of Short-eared Owls can inform conservation action for this species. Given the vast distances that individual Short-eared Owls can travel over the course of a season, we need to understand how these requirements may vary between locations. A substantial proportion of Britain’s Short-eared Owl population breeds on managed moorland, where these avian predators specialise on small mammal prey. Such moorland is widely managed for Red Grouse through the control of predators and the burning of vegetation, practices which can be controversial. Efforts to increase or restore heather and other dwarf-shrub cover, which are seen by many as a conservation priority, may also alter the nature of the moorland habitat used by Short-eared Owls. Set against this background, it has become especially pertinent to understand how Short-eared Owls use moorland habitats and, in particular, the different vegetation types present. Because of their nomadic behaviour, there is also a need to understand how these birds use similar open habitats elsewhere. This tracking study, which involved 17 fully-grown Short-eared Owls tagged with GPS tracking devices in Scotland between 2017 and 2020, provided an opportunity to look at individual habitat use across the different sites used by these birds in Scotland, England and Norway. The study looked at habitat use within individual home ranges, i.e. those areas used by the birds for more than five consecutive days and which were less than 500 hectares in size. Locations within 50 m of nest sites were excluded from the analysis because females may continuously incubate eggs or brood small chicks, skewing attempts to understand habitat use. Relative to their availability, there was a tendency for Short-eared Owls in Britain to preferentially use areas of grassland, including those smaller patches located within a wider Heather-grassland mosaic. In contrast, the tracking data from those individuals that also spent time in Norway revealed a tendency to hunt more over dwarf shrubs. The dwarf shrub community in Norway is more diverse than here in Britain, both in terms of species composition and structure. Such differences are likely to reflect prey availability, but they also highlight the behavioural plasticity of these birds. The results of this work can be used to inform relevant conservation strategies in at least three different ways. They inform the habitat management of specific sites, highlight landscapes towards which targeted management could be directed, and identify specific sites for conservation designation, protection and management.

Birds may exhibit a range of different movement patterns, from the dispersal that takes them away from the nest in which they were raised, through to annual migrations between breeding and wintering areas located thousands of miles apart. Some of these movements are more difficult to study than others, and this is particularly true for those species that are nomadic in their behaviour. International research led by BTO has revealed that Short-eared Owls make astonishing nomadic migrations between nest sites as far apart as Scotland and Arctic Russia.

Populations of Short-eared Owls are declining across many parts of their range, including here in Britain, where their breeding range contracted between 1990 and 2010. The relationships between a species’ breeding distribution and population trends with environmental variables can provide valuable information to conservation planners. By understanding these relationships it is possible to use Habitat Suitability Models to identify areas of habitat that are suitable for a species, which in turn can be useful when designating protected areas or nature reserves, or when highlighting areas where new planning developments would have an adverse effect.