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Burrowing Owl
Also called: PRAIRIE OWL
Images coming soon.
- Length
- 9.50 inches.
- Male and Female
- Upper parts dull grayish brown spotted with white; wing quills and tail marked with cross rows of spots, sometimes confluent into bars; eyebrow, chin, and throat white, the two latter divided by a dark brown collar; under parts white or pale buff barred with brown spots. Tail short; head smooth, with no ear tufts; facial disk incomplete; legs extremely long and slim, with few or no feathers.
- Range
- Western United States, from the Pacific coast east through the Great Plains, north into Canada, south to Central America; accidental in New York and Massachusetts.
- Season
- Permanent resident; or winter visitor at the southern end of its range.
Amusing fictions of this tiny owl living in brotherly love with prairie dogs and rattlesnakes had a serious explosion when Dr. Coues published his "Birds of the Northwest;" but fictions die lingering deaths, and one still reads of "happy families," with the prairie owl cutting a conspicuous figure--groups that Barnum would have certainly secured for the Greatest Show on Earth had they ever existed. "From an extended acquaintance with the habits of the burrowing owl," says Captain Bendire, writing for the government, "I can most positively assert, from personal experience and investigation, that there is no foundation based on actual facts for these stories, and that no such happy families exist in reality. I am fully convinced that the burrowing owl, small as it is, is more than a match for the average prairie dog, and the rattlesnake as well; it is by no means the peaceful and spiritless bird that it is generally believed to be, and it subsists, to some extent at least, on young dogs, if not also on the old ones."
Enlarging the deserted burrows of numerous small quadrupeds, especially of ground squirrels, prairie dogs, and badgers, but never living with them, the burrowing owl begins at the far end of the tunnel to loose the earth and send it backward with vigorous kicks until all is clear. Now dry horse or cow dung is carried to the burrow, broken up in little pieces, and scattered over the nesting chamber, which may be eight or even ten feet from the entrance. In California, dry grass, feathers, weed stalks, and such material may serve as a carpet; but however lined, a prairie owl's nest is sure to abound in fleas. These sometimes speckle the eggs until no one who had not washed them would suspect they were normally a clear, glossy white. As many as eleven eggs have been taken from a chamber where they were found arranged in the form of a horse-shoe--which is usual--or piled in a double layer when the set is exceedingly large; and so skilfully do both mates cover the eggs, that only very rarely does one become addled. The devoted mates remain paired for life.
Except when they have nursery duties to house them--and these are usually ended by June--one may expect to see the funny, top-heavy little owls around the entrance to their homes at any hour of the day, for they are diurnal in habits, and not night prowlers only, although their activities greatly increase after sundown. Bowing toward you as you approach--your entertainer is not shy--a little gnome-like creature nearly twists its head off its neck in its attempt to follow your movements with its immovable eyes. Approach too near, and off it flies, chattering, but not often further than a neighbor's burrow. Small colonies of these owls live in perfect harmony. Doubtless it is the chattering of a disturbed bird, which does sound something like the rattle of a snake, that has given rise to the yarn about rattlesnakes living in owl burrows. Quite a concert of mellow coo-c-o-o-o-os, the love note of the species, is kept up by several pairs, sometimes for an hour or more. These notes are uttered only when the birds are at rest and happy. Zip, zip, they shrilly cry when alarmed; and besides these sounds, they sharply and rapidly click their bills when excited and enraged, just as all owls do.
A great many colonies are purposely located on the outskirts of prairie dog towns for obvious reasons. The amount of food required by a family of eight or ten hungry owls, any one of which eats more than its weight in a day, is enormous; and after sundown, one sees the busy hunters on the chase, now poised in mid air, like the sparrow hawk, above their prey; now swooping downward on swift, noiseless wings to grasp it in their talons and bear it away. A few well directed blows with the beak, that break the vertebrae of the neck, quiet the struggling victim forever. It is amazing how large the prey is that one of these bold little owls will quickly overcome. The brains are the favorite tid-bits, and often all other parts remain untouched. "Noxious vermin," that is, mice, squirrels, gophers, and such humble quarry, are the prairie owl's staple food, which lays the western farmer under special obligation to see that his rapacious ally receives the fullest protection.