The Burrowing Owls Finally Make an Appearance!

As we get towards the end of the year, I start to review the lists and try and figure out which birds I love, but have not yet seen. Two weeks ago, the Phainopeplas arrived on the Tuolumne River Trail and I was finally able to check them off the list, and the next most favorite bird moved to #1: the Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia).

I was distressed about not seeing a single Burrowing Owl all year. I've been concerned about their welfare in our area because they are denizens of the prairie, and the prairies in our region are being dug up and planted with almond orchards, some 40,000 acres in our county in the last decade or so. We've made a number of trips through the seasons on Crabtree and Willms Roads in the Mother Lode foothills between the Tuolumne and Stanislaus Rivers. We've seen lots of interesting birds, but not a single owl was to be found anywhere.

The little owls sometimes dig their own burrows, but most of the time they take over the abandoned burrows of other creatures like badgers or ground squirrels. They hunt and consume a huge variety of small mammals, reptiles, and large insects, and hunt day and night. Almond orchards don't really provide that kind of habitat or food resource, so the birds get pushed east into the foothills.

So here it is, early December, and no Burrowing Owls anywhere. I had a few extra minutes this afternoon (it's been a loooong semester), so I drove out Crabtree Road, and finally saw two of them! They were several hundred yards away, and I don't know how I ever spied them. I was pleased, but there were no possibilities for pictures. I headed back home, and saw a bird ahead on the fence by the road, but it flew into a depression and disappeared. I slowed a bit and I saw it land on the fence behind me.. I rolled to a slow stop and very slowly opened the car door to get out and try for some pictures. Much to my surprise, the owl cooperated! Enjoy!

 

Juvenile Red-tailed Hawk on the California Prairie

We saw quite a few species on our short excursions through the California prairie last weekend. As we drove south from the Willms Ranch stock pond, we passed a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) on Crabtree Road. It didn't worry about us enough to fly off, but it certainly kept an eye on us.

I'm slowly getting better with my identifying of hawk species, but Red-tails can be especially challenging because their coloration is highly variable (in other words, I could be wrong and welcome corrections, as always). The hawk is one of the most visible raptors in North America with a range that extends from Panama and the Caribbean Sea to Alaska and the Arctic Circle.

What? Another Burrowing Owl?

I don't usually post about the same bird on successive days, but it turns out that Mrs. Geotripper was not with me yesterday when I sallied forth and discovered a Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia) in the prairies east of my town in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. The odd thing is, I've seen Burrowing Owls only three times, and the three sightings were within a hundred yards of each other, even while years apart. Mrs. Geotripper wanted to get pictures of her own so we headed back out to Willms Road near Knights Ferry.

The funny thing is, we saw a fourth owl in a different spot, on Crabtree Road. So the spell is broken. I'll probably finally start seeing them everywhere now. If it illustrates how hard they can be to detect in their home environment, see if you can locate the owl in the first picture. It's there, honest! Mrs. Geotripper got the clearest close-up, seen below.