• picture
  • picture
  • picture
  • picture
Public Radio's Environmental News Magazine (follow us on Google News)

Digging for Owls

Air Date: Week of

How many owls do you see? Two? Look down. (Photo: Ron Knight)

The rare burrowing owl lives underground and has numerous vocalizations, including a call that mimics rattlesnakes to scare off predators. From southern Idaho, producer Jeff Rice reports on his trip with a biologist to dig for the tiny owls.



Transcript

CURWOOD: But before you do, take a listen to a story from Idaho where one biologist has been studying these owls for years. Jeff Rice has our report.

RICE: It's well over a hundred degrees out on the Snake River plain in southern Idaho, and biologist Jim Belthoff is digging for owls.

[SOUND OF DIGGING]

RICE: This is a study site on the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, a few dozen miles from Boise. The vast expanse of tan-colored soil and sagebrush has one of the densest populations of nesting raptors in North America. Today, we're hoping to find some rare burrowing owls.

[DIGGING]

BELTHOFF: The owls will be down here in this chamber.

RICE: Western burrowing owls are one of the smallest owl species and live in abandoned ground squirrel or badger holes in wide-open areas like this one.

[PASSING CAR]

RICE: The field is next to a highway and seems barren—mostly clay soil and hardly even any grass—exactly the way the owls like it.



The burrowing owl makes chuckling and cooing calls. (Photo: Neil McIntosh)

BELTHOFF: They like areas with very little vegetation—little or none actually is what they prefer. And the reasoning is that they like no vegetation so that they can see any ground dwelling predators approaching their nest, so they can get out of the way.

RICE: It's a strategy that works.

[OWL CALL]

RICE: A tiny brown and white adult owl, no more than ten inches tall spots us. He rises up on a pair of spindly legs, sounding a warning call.

[SOUND OF CALL, DIGGING]

RICE: The rest of the owls are hunkered down, but we know right where to dig. Belthoff, a professor at Boise State University, has built some artificial plastic burrows. The owls have moved in and he can dig down to the lid and open the den up without too much trouble.

BELTHOFF: Some footprints in front of this one, so we'll probably find some babies in here.

RICE: Belthoff reaches his hand into the den to retrieve a bird and suddenly…

[SOUND OF SNAKE RATTLE]

RICE: The sound is coming from inside the hole.

[RATTLING]

RICE: We know that this area is crowded with rattlesnakes, but Belthoff doesn't jump back. He reaches deeper into the hole, blindly feeling around.

[RATTLING]

RICE: He grabs something, coming out with a burrowing owl fledgling. The bird is about a month old. Its mouth is open, and it is hissing at us.



A juvenile owl, like this one, lives in a brood of 3-12 chicks. (Photo: Jim and Pam Jenkins, Smithsonian's National Zoo)

[RATTLING]

BELTHOFF: Burrowing owls have about seventeen documented types of vocalizations, of which this rattle call or hiss is one of them.

RICE: It's uncanny. Belthoff explains that it's something that only the juvenile owls will do. They haven't developed their ability to fly yet, so they need another way to ward off predators.

BELTHOFF: It's a case of what's called “mimicry” in animals in where, either the site of something or the sound of something sounds like something else and, in this particular case, it's a case of Batesian mimicry where the sound of something that's harmless actually mimics something that's harmful.

[RATTLING]



People hope to preserve this rare species by building safe habitats for them to live in. (photo: Chris Foster)

BELTHOFF: There's a lot of rattlesnakes in holes and so any potential predator that's coming up on this hole and sneaking down the tunnel would actually think twice, perhaps, if he hears a rattlesnake in there. Certainly, I feel some trepidation when I’m reaching my arm down in there and I hear those rattles, and I'm hoping it's not a rattlesnake.

[RATTLING]

RICE: The owl's mimicry is effective against predators like badgers, but it can't protect it from its biggest threat, bulldozers and creeping human sprawl. Burrowing owls are considered threatened or endangered in a number of western states. The owls tend to live on wide-open flat ground, a perfect place for shopping malls and parking lots.

[PASSING CAR]

RICE: That's why Belthoff is monitoring the birds—keeping track of their health and weight, and tagging them to study their migration patterns.

BELTHOFF: We band each one with an aluminum leg band, and then we give them three-color bands. So, then when they sit up on a perch, we can actually read those color-band combinations with a spotting scope. And we can tell whom it is we're dealing with without having to recapture them.

[DIGGING]

RICE: After the young birds are tagged, we cover up the owl den. An adult owl has been watching us from a fence post, probably the whole time. Its call, a bit less fearsome above ground.

[CHIRPING]

RICE: For Living on Earth, I'm Jeff Rice in southern Idaho.

 

Links

Read more about the burrowing owl here

Listen to more Burrowing Owl recordings by Jeff Rice on Montana State University's Acoustic Atlas

Three juvenile owls mimicking rattlesnake sounds. Listen here.

 

Living on Earth wants to hear from you!

Living on Earth
62 Calef Highway, Suite 212
Lee, NH 03861
Telephone: 617-287-4121
E-mail: comments@loe.org

Newsletter [Click here]

Donate to Living on Earth!
Living on Earth is an independent media program and relies entirely on contributions from listeners and institutions supporting public service. Please donate now to preserve an independent environmental voice.

Newsletter
Living on Earth offers a weekly delivery of the show's rundown to your mailbox. Sign up for our newsletter today!

Sailors For The Sea: Be the change you want to sea.

Creating positive outcomes for future generations.

Innovating to make the world a better, more sustainable place to live. Listen to the race to 9 billion

The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment: Committed to protecting and improving the health of the global environment.

Contribute to Living on Earth and receive, as our gift to you, an archival print of one of Mark Seth Lender's extraordinary wildlife photographs. Follow the link to see Mark's current collection of photographs.

Buy a signed copy of Mark Seth Lender's book Smeagull the Seagull & support Living on Earth