The word owl usually brings to mind the image of a large bird, swooping down at night on prey, hooting loudly from a tree. The burrowing owl, one of at least 13 species of owls in Colorado, hardly fits the mold. This small, spindly-legged owl lives on the ground, is seen hunting during the day, and makes soft coo-coo and cackling sounds.
Standing about 7-10 inches tall, this little owl gets its name from where it lives. Burrowing owls are often found in abandoned rodent burrows, most often in prairie dog colonies. Far from trees, they nest and live near their burrows. Their brown mottled feathers help them blend in to the surrounding prairie where they dine on insects, small mammals, and sometimes reptiles and amphibians.
It can be difficult to spot burrowing owls if they are not moving. In addition to camouflage with their environment, an owl appears from a distance to be just another prairie dog standing sentry near its underground home. An observer must carefully scan a prairie dog colony with binoculars, looking carefully for any movements from the owls. The reward may be seeing the little dancing hops the owls sometimes do as they bob around on their long legs.
Burrowing owls catch food as they walk or run along the ground, and sometimes snatch insects in midair as they fly just above the surface. Much of their food sources are available during the day, but they are also active at night.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife reports that females lay from six to 11 eggs each summer, and both parents help incubate the eggs and care for the young. Burrowing owls arrive in Colorado in March or April, and return to the southern United States, Mexico and Central America in mid-October.
Being small, burrowing owls must defend themselves against predators. Hawks, foxes, coyotes, domestic cats and dogs are threats to these birds, as well as the automobiles that hit many owls living near roads.
An interesting defense is the young owlet's ability to make a hissing sound that mimics a rattlesnake, one of the other animals that share space in a prairie dog colony. Predators that are familiar with the warning of the rattlesnake are perhaps deterred from bothering the young owls.
Burrowing owls can be seen at Coyote Ridge Natural Area, in between Loveland and Fort Collins on Taft Hill Road, just south of the landfill. Walk down the trail about one-quarter mile, and with binoculars you can spot burrowing owls in the prairie dog colony. The owls are also seen in the western section of Pawnee National Grasslands in Weld County.
Two of the biggest obstacles to burrowing owls are thought to be a loss of habitat due to development and loss of prairie dog colonies. In addition, burrowing owls have been adversely affected by insecticides used to kill grasshoppers, crickets and beetles which the owls ingest, according to information from the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory. Burrowing owls are listed as a threatened species in Colorado, which means that the species is likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future.
A few places near Loveland offer chances to see burrowing owls, including Coyote Ridge Natural Area and the Pawnee National Grasslands. Carin Avila, education director for the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program, shares that burrowing owl populations are doing pretty well at the grasslands. "As close as four years ago they were seen out at the Walmart Distribution center at Crossroads," she adds, " but the prairie dog communities were eliminated and so then were the homes for the burrowing owls."
The wide open spaces of the prairie are not often recognized as wildlife-viewing areas, with the mountains so close to our doorstep. The burrowing owl is just one example of many species that inhabit the open areas of eastern Colorado, reminding us of the treeless, open plains that once existed.