Burrowing Owls in Burrow

How does that sound for a headline? This is totally doable! After all, California Audubon’s site states that “This is a conservation award. We’re particularly interested in recognizing bird species that were of significant conservation interest in 2013, but that also had a compelling story and rallied the public around it.”

Burrowing Owls

The Western Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia) has had a compelling story and rallied the public around it for at least the last fifteen years as its population has declined at an ever increasing rate. If this bird doesn’t deserve this conservation award, I don’t know what species does. Click on photos for full sized images.

Burrowing Owls

These Burrowing Owl photos were taken at a rare breeding site in Vacaville California. It is typical because it is on a small piece of land in the midst of a developed, and developing, urban area. These birds are surviving on a sliver of land surrounded by car dealerships, urban sprawl, and luckily, Green Tree Golf Club (see map).

Burrowing Owls are notoriously difficult to spot, even for the trained eye, since they are low to the ground and blend in to their background. This is what a group looks like when you arrive in their territory and they are at their burrow entrance. There are actually four birds in this photo.

Burrowing Owls

These were taken right outside the golf course fence and within a hundred feet of a car dealership parking lot. One of the adults flew up to the top of the fence to keep an eye on me from a better vantage point.

Burrowing Owl

These little guys fly pretty quickly but I managed to get a shot of him taking off from the fence.

Burrowing Owl

He flew across a busy street to another car dealership where it looks as if he is a frequent visitor.

Burrowing Owl

These owls are getting squeezed into smaller and smaller territories as developers take their habitat for homes, factories, office buildings and businesses. We need to protect their remaining habitat and spread the word of their predicament. One way we can do that is by voting for the Burrowing Owl as the California Audubon Bird of the Year in 2013. You can vote as often as you wish so please, vote for the Burrowing Owl now, and often, until December 6th.

Burrowing Owl

We can make that headline a reality if we spread the word and get out the vote!

Written by Larry
Larry Jordan was introduced to birding after moving to northern California where he was overwhelmed by the local wildlife, forcing him to buy his first field guide just to be able to identify all the species visiting his yard. Building birdhouses and putting up feeders brought the avian fauna even closer and he was hooked. Larry wanted to share his passion for birds and conservation and hatched The Birder's Report in September of 2007. His recent focus is on bringing the Western Burrowing Owl back to life in California where he also monitors several bluebird trails. He is a BirdLife Species Champion and contributes to several other conservation efforts, being the webmaster for Wintu Audubon Society and the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Urban Bird Foundation. He is now co-founder of a movement to create a new revenue stream for our National Wildlife Refuges with a Wildlife Conservation Pass.