My first one of these of the season and he / she was quite an entertaining one. I had been on the lookout for them as I knew they had been migrating here as they do this time of year but wasn’t having much luck. As I drove along I glanced to my left and there it was, not 10 feet from the road.
It gave me some awesome, closeup poses but, when a trash truck came by, it got scared and fled to the top of a hill. There, it played this game of sticking its head up above the snow-covered hill, checking to see if it was clear. Pretty funny to watch!
In many ways, this is a fitting image to share on Earth Day. Burrowing Owls are considered a threatened species here in the Colorado. Their numbers appear to be on the decline as humans take over and destroy their habitat.
Many folks think nothing of wiping out Prairie Dog colonies, a keystone species itself, but don’t realize the cascading effects of that on all of the other creatures down the line, including these little guys. Without the Prairie Dog burrows, Burrowing Owls don’t have a home and many other creatures like hawks and eagles don’t have a food source.
