Unseasonal Owl

I was at West Hartford around 8 this evening to see if anything had settled on the water for the night.
The muddy margins are starting to show once again around both pools despite the showers today.
BH Gulls and a few LBB and Herring Gulls were at the back of the main pool again. After a while the gulls all took off at once and I could see a strange brown bird amongst them.
The gulls flew off south whilst the Brown bird landed on the bent branch of the tree behind the pool. It turned out to be an unseasonal Short Eared Owl, which stayed in the tree looking directly at me for around ten minutes.

I’m not sure what the Short Eared was doing flying amongst the gull group or if it was the reason the gulls flew off. I didn’t even see where it came from, I presume it came out of the long grass to the right of the pool and flew low behind the gulls.
As I was watching the Owl a Roe Deer skulked amongst the long grass in front of the tree.