Whatchu looking at?…by Brad Marks

Haunts in the home stretch, weather is annoying me more than the ridiculous tiny screws on purchased props, trying to get miles in on a tired body and my head has put out an APB in search of its favorite pillow. Welcome to “hauntlife”. Last thing you want me to do is try to put sentences together, so even though Brad is out on assignment, he’s going to bring you an adventure from the exotic, untamed and dangerous realm of .. wait, did he say “subdivision”!?! Must be the sleep deprivation. Take care everyone, you are assuredly in good hands for the next week or two.

Take it away Brad…

Intrigued HQ gave Jan and I this assignment during the Fall of 2023, just after Brian’s visit to Las Vegas (here).  We were just coming off a multi-day visit to Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, with probably well north of 10,000 images already in the tin.  Jan and I met Allyson in Las Vegas (isn’t that fun when your adult children choose to spend time with you, even if they have to pay for the airfare?) to spend time together and see a few shows.  With so many demands on our time in just a few days, we were unable to look for today’s subject. 

Fast forward to Spring 2024.  Because of a flat tire on our rental car the prior day (see A New Low link here), we had to compress our extensive birding assignments (thanks to the taskmasters at Intrigued HQ) into one less day.  On the day we found these little jewels, it really came down to either having a shower and getting cleaned up after nearly 10 hours outside in Las Vegas, or take a chance that we might find what we were looking for.  I’m very glad we rolled the dice in favor of the birds.

I plugged in the secret coordinates into the GPS app, and we started on the adventure to find today’s birds.  When the GPS app said, “You have arrived”, I thought for sure it had gone bonkers in the desert heat.  Jan and I found ourselves in the middle of a subdivision.  But the GPS app said we were there (and we all know they are never wrong) so I parked the car next to a long chain link fence.  The fence was surrounding what looked like an empty city block.  As I was prepping the cameras, a 40-something couple rode by on their bicycles.  All they said was, “There are two of them out right now,” and pointed to the other end of the chain link fence as they pedaled away.

Finishing up camera assembly (Jan’s first as always), I gently closed the hatch on the rental so I wouldn’t frighten the birds, if they were, in fact, still there.  Jan and I moseyed about a hundred yards along the length of the fence until we got to the far corner.  Not knowing how large our quarry was, neither of us really knew how far out to be looking.  Were these birds larger than the small scrub brush we were seeing?  Or were they the size of a can of your favorite soft drink (soda or pop depending on where you are from)?  Then I saw these two, sitting up proud as you please, not very far away.

Hit the jump to see what caught our attention on the other side of the fence.

Using my soft outside voice I said, “There they are,” and pointed to my left over the fence.  We had found them:  Burrowing Owls (Athene cunicularia). 

The ground outside the chain link fence was sloping away from the bottom of the fence, ever so slightly. Being over six feet tall, I was able to easily see over the top of the five-foot tall fence.  Jan wasn’t quite as lucky, and had to look through the chain links under the top bar of the fence.  Her calves were getting a workout until she found more level ground to stand on.

The rest of the story speaks for itself.  Once I stopped grinning at how really cute these Burrowing Owls are, I started exercising my camera like it had been sitting all winter long.

Burrowing Owls are between robin sized and crow sized, about 9” tall, and tip the scales just over 5 ounces.  That’s right, less than half the weight of a standard aluminum can filled with your favorite beverage.  Their wingspan is only 21”, or way less than then length of two of my shoes set heel to toe.  The owls may look larger, but don’t let the 500mm zoom (actually 750mm on a Nikon cropped sensor) of the lens and the aggressive cropping fool you.  These little owls were probably 100 feet or more away from us.  Not being much taller than the span of an octave on a piano (my thumb to my outstretched pinky finger) the owls were tough to spot at first.  Speckled brown on a brown background is great camouflage. 

Every now and then, the light was perfect enough to highlight the owl’s piercing bright yellow eyes.  It reminded me of shining a flashlight on a bike reflector at night.  If their gaze was any indication of their ferocity, I got the impression the pair could take down a full-sized human, with or without a camera.  (Similar to the way our 15-year old miniature schnauzer Schultz once stared down a full-sized German Shepherd and a Golden Retriever.)  I’m sure at this point, both cameras clicking away at maximum frames rates probably captured their attention.

The preferred habitat of a Burrowing Owl is nearly anywhere they can make, or steal, a burrow.  They prefer open, dry soil but will live in the desert, grasslands, or any other open habitat.  Owl numbers are declining partly because of humans altering their native habitat, and partly because of the decline of prairie dogs and ground squirrels, whose burrows they take over.  Having said all of that, we found this pair in the middle of a subdivision.  Thankfully, the nice folks at Rainbow Owl Preserve have built burrows for a few pairs of owls and secured the area from casual pedestrians and predators.

The ”burrows” in this case are mostly human made.  The entrances were cement cinder blocks, with chunks of rock or logs framing the entrance to the burrow.  The cinder block is visible under the owl to the left in some of the photos.  Jan and I saw more than a handful, but less than a subdivision’s worth of burrows in the preserve.

In most owl species, the female is the larger of the pair.  Burrowing Owl couples are the same size, male or female.

Just prior to laying eggs, Burrowing Owls will sometimes coat the entrance of their home with animal dung.  The dung attracts, what else, dung beetles which the owls can eat at their leisure.  The smell also tends to hide them from predators and masks any scent the adults, or their owlets, might produce.  Very clever on their part.  Some even decorate the entrance of the burrow to let others know “this one is taken, go get your own.”  A mated pair will raise 2-12 eggs each season, usually close to other nesting pairs.  They nest in a loose colony of up to 100 individuals.  Incubation takes 28-30 days and nesting lasts another 45-50 days.  The females stay in or very near the nest until the chicks leave home.  The males stand guard, defending both family and territory.

I’ve not had the “Owl” course at Intrigued yet, it’s a 300-level course, but I can imagine they were discussing which one of us they were going to go after first.  Probably Jan because I’m a fair bit larger target to start with.

At this point, I’m wondering what the residents think of all the tourists looking at “their” owls.  The preserve is literally a residential block, fenced off to keep the owls safer.  The fencing is nothing special, just standard chain link.  Ironically, the fenced off area sits across the street from some very nice houses.  The preserve looks a little out of place in this neighborhood.  Or is the other way around with the houses being out of place in the middle of the desert owl preserve?

I didn’t notice until later, but the owl on the right was standing on one leg the whole time.  Maybe a bit of tai chi to maintain the zen look of these birds. 

If you look carefully, the “fluffy” owl on the left has one eye slightly open and is staring just as intently at me as the other owl is.  Or at least, in my general direction.  Being half asleep, (a trick owls share with dolphins, resting one half of their brain at any given time) I bet it’s wondering how it could drag me into its burrow for snacking over the summer.  I’m pretty sure they were curious about two cameras being pointed in their direction.  It seemed like they would switch their gaze from Jan to me and back again. 

Figuring we had stressed them enough, and after capturing hundreds of photographs, Jan and I walked back to the car, both very excited to have seen a pair of Burrowing Owls.  I put away the cameras and cranked up the AC in the rental car.  The outside temperature was in the 90’s, but very low humidity.  That “dry heat” crap really doesn’t make much difference over 90F.  Observing the neighborhood speed limit, I drove past where we spotted the owls to take one last look at them.  Alas, they were gone.  In the two to three minutes, it took us to pack and leave, the owls decided they had had enough and went back in the burrow.  Or to take down a smaller photographer somewhere else.  Thankfully, Burrowing Owls usually only go after insects, reptiles and small mammals.  Unfortunately, they are on the list of snacks for hawks or falcons and domestic cats.  They have to be vigilant when hunting, lest they be the  hunted.

If I forgot to mention earlier, Burrowing Owls are a +1 for us, and probably in the top five coolest birds Jan and I have ever seen.  Right up there with the Atlantic Puffin (here) and California Condor (here).  Bald Eagles are, of course, in the top five (here), even if we do see them fairly regularly near home.

Thank you for reading. If you want to see more Burrowing Owl photos, please visit here.

Credits

Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing.  Thanks to Jan for some of the photos in this article.