Birds live in and among the trees, or in the water, right? Not this one. You’re face-to-face with a burrowing owl. They will dig their own burrows or take over one abandoned by a prairie dog, ground squirrel or tortoise. They also hunt on the ground during the day, which explains why this one was staring straight at me when we met one afternoon a few years ago.
We were in Naples visiting our friends Debbie and Eugene, and heard from another birder we met on a walk about a nest of burrowing owls on nearby Marco Island. We went to the spot he described—a vacant lot in residential area—and there he or she was.
You can find burrowing owls all over the Florida peninsula, and throughout the Western U.S.. They’re habitats are declining rapidly because we keep building on the lands they use. But they’re pretty clever and adaptable: they’ve been known to nest in piles of PVC pipe and other lairs unintentionally provided by humans. Conservationists make use of the owls' adaptability by supplying artificial burrows made of buckets, pipes, tubing, and other human-made materials.
Here’s looking at you, kid.