Short-eared Owl--Belgium

We began our birding trip at midday in Lille, picked up by Belgian guide for a British tour group (very balanced: 4 Brits and 4 Americans, the other six came by train from London). We drove first to Oostende on the Belgian coast (very cold in the wind and not much to see), then on beyond Bruges to polders further north (flat areas near the coast), seeing mainly geese and ducks.

For nearly a hour at the end of the afternoon we drove around a particular where our guide knew that short-eared owls had been seen reliably in the last few days. No luck, no luck, and then finally as dark was beginning to loom, I spotted a ball of fluff on a post perhaps 30 meters from the road. We had to back up a bit, and there he was--I was lucky, with a window in the van that I pointed my camera through. He was windblown and moved constantly; this was one of the few straightforward shots I got.

Our guide told us that the same tour had not regularly seen this owl in previous years--we felt very fortunate. The scientific name is Asio flammeus; there are at least ten subspecies found throughout the world. Here's a shot of the Galapagos version.