Momma Said There’d Days Like This
It was a delight watching this fledgling Burrowing Owl as he climbed out of his underground home and investigated the surrounding area. I got a quick shot of him as he pushed through the grass in search of a bit of adventure and a tasty bug. Life is Good : )
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Burrowing Owls are small, sandy colored owls with bright-yellow eyes. They live underground in burrows they’ve dug themselves or taken over from a prairie dog, ground squirrel, or tortoise.
They live in grasslands, deserts, and other open habitats, where they hunt mainly insects and rodents. Their numbers have declined sharply with human alteration of their habitat and the decline of prairie dogs and ground squirrels.
Before laying eggs, Burrowing Owls carpet the entrances to their homes with animal dung, which attracts dung beetles and other insects that the owls then catch and eat. They may also collect bottle caps, metal foil, cigarette butts, paper scraps, and other bits of trash at the entrance, possibly signifying that the burrow is occupied.
Burrowing Owls have a higher tolerance for carbon dioxide than other birds—an adaptation found in other burrowing animals, which spend long periods underground, where the gas can accumulate to higher levels than found above ground.
Unlike most owls in which the female is larger than the male, the sexes of the Burrowing Owl are the same size.
Burrowing Owls often stow extra food to ensure an adequate supply during incubation and brooding. When food is plentiful, the birds' underground larders can reach prodigious sizes. One cache observed in Saskatchewan in 1997 contained more than 200 rodents.
(Nikon, 500/4 + TC 1.4, 1/1000 @ f/7.1, ISO 280, edited to taste)
Momma Said There’d Days Like This
It was a delight watching this fledgling Burrowing Owl as he climbed out of his underground home and investigated the surrounding area. I got a quick shot of him as he pushed through the grass in search of a bit of adventure and a tasty bug. Life is Good : )
____________________________
Burrowing Owls are small, sandy colored owls with bright-yellow eyes. They live underground in burrows they’ve dug themselves or taken over from a prairie dog, ground squirrel, or tortoise.
They live in grasslands, deserts, and other open habitats, where they hunt mainly insects and rodents. Their numbers have declined sharply with human alteration of their habitat and the decline of prairie dogs and ground squirrels.
Before laying eggs, Burrowing Owls carpet the entrances to their homes with animal dung, which attracts dung beetles and other insects that the owls then catch and eat. They may also collect bottle caps, metal foil, cigarette butts, paper scraps, and other bits of trash at the entrance, possibly signifying that the burrow is occupied.
Burrowing Owls have a higher tolerance for carbon dioxide than other birds—an adaptation found in other burrowing animals, which spend long periods underground, where the gas can accumulate to higher levels than found above ground.
Unlike most owls in which the female is larger than the male, the sexes of the Burrowing Owl are the same size.
Burrowing Owls often stow extra food to ensure an adequate supply during incubation and brooding. When food is plentiful, the birds' underground larders can reach prodigious sizes. One cache observed in Saskatchewan in 1997 contained more than 200 rodents.
(Nikon, 500/4 + TC 1.4, 1/1000 @ f/7.1, ISO 280, edited to taste)