Galapagos Short-eared Owl

  Happy to paint another animal from my Galapagos trip.  The Galapagos Short-Eared Owl is an endemic subspecies to the archipelago.  This top predator hunts during the day and preys upon rats, land birds and sea birds.  In particular, the stormy petrel, depicted on the painting.  On Genovesa Island, we hiked near the cliffside made by lava field. Along the cliffs were hundreds of birds swarming: mostly stormy petrels, some red-billed tropicbirds and Nazca boobies.  The Galapagos Owl was hard to spot at first, camouflaged by the lava fields but we were then very lucky to see up close and it gazed at us with it's amazingly piercing stare.