Can I borrow your burrow?

So here we are again, and this time I’ve decided to pick my first nocturnal bird of prey to write about (YAY!). Who is it you ask? Why it’s the super cute burrowing owl of course. Athene cunicularia more commonly known as the burrowing owl, so named due to their breeding habit of nesting in burrows on the ground created by prairie dogs or ground squirrels depending on their location but they may also nest in synthetic burrows in human populated areas (Martin, 1973, Barclay and Menzel, 2011, Scobie et al., 2014). There is an interesting behaviour which arise from the use of ground squirrel burrows, since rattlesnakes are also known to use ground squirrel burrows A.cunicularia has been known to produce hissing and rattling sound once the burrow has been occupied to simulate defensive sounds of a rattlesnake to ward away squirrels, a classic example of Batesian mimicry (Rowe et al., 1986). This trait as a defensive mechanism however is not common amongst owls, a unique behaviour for a homologous trait (hissing). Furthermore it could also act as a defensive acoustic mimicry to predators such as coyotes and badgers (Rowe et al., 1986).

Due to their large range there are many subspecies of burrowing owls throughout the Americas occupying habitats from open desert grasslands to golf courses and parks in some urban areas (Martin, 1973, Scobie et al., 2014). A.cunicularia is also known to be territorial and may possibly have territories stretching of up to and beyond 166m from nesting sites (Martin, 1973). As with many other animals and plants humans have had an impact on the burrowing owl with habitat encroachment such as roads and infrastructure. With the presence of roads it also means that cars will disturb the adjacent habitat, it has been shown that burrowing owls will avoid roads with traffic travelling 80+ km/hr, as the noise pollution interferes with their predator detection ability as well as communication with mate and young but some man-made structures such as posts do act as valuable perches for the owls (Scobie et al., 2014).

Since I have no pictures today here's a little clip by the Smithsonian on these cute little birds and one very interesting behaviour too.

BARCLAY, J. H. & MENZEL, S. 2011. Apparent Polygynous Nesting by Burrowing Owls. Journal of Raptor Research, 45, 98-100.

MARTIN, D. J. 1973. Selected Aspects of Burrowing Owl Ecology and Behavior. The Condor, 75, 446-456.

ROWE, M. P., COSS, R. G. & OWINGS, D. H. 1986. Rattlesnake Rattles and Burrowing Owl Hisses: A Case of Acoustic Batesian Mimicry. Ethology, 72, 53-71.

SCOBIE, C., BAYNE, E. & WELLICOME, T. 2014. Influence of anthropogenic features and traffic disturbance on burrowing owl diurnal roosting behavior. Endangered Species Research, 24, 73-83.