Burrowing Owls
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The Burrowing Owl, Athene cunicularia, is a small, long-legged owl found throughout open landscapes of North and South America. There are two subspecies in North America: A. c. hypugaea of southern Canada, western USA, and Mexico; and A. c. floridana of Florida and some Caribbean islands. Other subspecies are recognized in Central and South America.
Burrowing owls can be found in grasslands, rangelands, agricultural areas, deserts, or any other dry, open area with low vegetation. Unlike most owls, burrowing owls are often active during the day. However, most hunting is done at night.
They are year-round residents in the southern areas of their range. Birds that breed in Canada and northern USA usually migrate south to Mexico and southern USA during winter months.
Adults have brown plumage with white spotting. The belly is white with brown bars. Their eyes and bill are yellow and they have long legs. The females are darker than the males. The average adult is slightly larger than a robin, at 25 cm (10 inches) length, 53 cm (21 inches) wingspan, 170g (6 oz) weight. The young owls look similar to the adults except that they have a buff bar across their wings and their chests are covered in a white to buff down.
The burrowing owl is endangered in Canada, threatened in Mexico, and a species of special concern in most of the western USA. The major reasons for declining populations are control programs for prairie dogs and loss of habitat. On the IUCN Red List, however, it is a species of Least Concern because of a large global population.
Burrowing owls are able to live for at least 9 years in the wild and over 10 years in captivity. They are often killed by vehicles when crossing roads, and have many natural enemies, including badgers, coyotes, and snakes. They are also killed by feral and domestic cats and dogs.
Calls
The who, who call of a burrowing owl is mainly given by adult males to attract a female to a promising burrow. This call is also associated with breeding and territory defense. These owls also make other sounds, which are described as chuck, chatter and scream. These sounds are usually accompanied by a bobbing of the head up and down. When alarmed, young birds will give a hissing call that sounds like a rattlesnake.
Mating and Nesting
The nesting season begins in late March or April. Burrowing owls are usually monogamous, but occasionally a male will have two mates. Pairs of owls will sometimes nest in loose colonies. Their typical breeding habitat is open grassland or prairie, but they can occasionally adapt to other open areas like airports, golf courses, and agricultural fields. Burrowing owls are slightly tolerant of human presence, often nesting near roads, farms, homes, and regularly maintained irrigation canals.
The owls nest in an underground burrow, hence the name Burrowing Owl. They use burrows created by other burrowing animals such as prairie dogs or ground squirrels. If burrows are unavailable and the soil is not hard or rocky, the owls may excavate their own. Burrowing owls will also nest in shallow, underground, man-made structures that have easy access to the surface.
The female can lay around 10-12 eggs over a two week period. She will then incubate the eggs for three weeks while the male brings her food. After the eggs hatch both parents will feed the chicks. Four weeks after hatching, the chicks are able to make short flights and begin leaving the nest burrow. The parents will still help feed the chicks for 1 to 3 months. While most of the eggs will hatch, only four to five chicks usually survive to leave the nest.
During the nesting season, burrowing owls will line the burrow with mammal dung, usually from cattle. The dung helps to control the microclimate inside the burrow and to attract insects, which the owls eat.
Site fidelity rates appear to vary among populations. In southern locations, owls will frequently reuse a nest several years in a row. Owls in migratory northern populations are less likely to return to the same burrow every year. Also, as with many other birds, the female owls are more likely to disperse to a different site than are male owls.
Diet
The highly variable diet includes small mammals, small birds, snakes, lizards, frogs, insects, and scorpions. But the owls mainly eat large insects and small rodents. Although burrowing owls often live in close proximity to ground squirrels, they rarely prey upon them. Unlike other owls, they also eat fruits and seeds, especially the fruit of Tesajilla and prickly pear cactus. When hunting they wait on a perch until they spot prey. Then they swoop down on prey or fly up to catch insects in flight. Sometimes they chase prey on foot across the ground.
Copyright: Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia.org
Related Websites: whozoo.org ... Burrowing Owl Photographs, South-Central Arizona (Photo & Info) ... Burrowing Owls (Photos - Alberta Birds of Prey Center)
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