Let’s end today’s hijinks with everyone’s favorite bird, the owl, which was coopted during the SuperBowl into the meme SuperbOwl, which is far more appealing. Matthew sent me a tw**t from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service showing this photo, which looks for all the world like a group of owl fans cheering on their team:
They are, in fact, young burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia), and they’re in an artificial burrow: a five-gallon bucket buried and connected to the surface with a breathing pipe. It’s a way to save this endangered species whose habitat is declining.
If you go to the USFWS website, you’ll see a bit more about how the picture was taken (by Katie McVey, doing her graduate research) and how the owls are given artificial burrows. The short post also includes this hilarious picture of the chicks either being banded or being checked. Owls always look either pissed off or bemused:
From the site:
Burrowing owls are different from many owls people know. Aside from living in tunnels, when a burrowing owl feels threatened (like the owls pictured at top), they hiss. So while the owls look surprised, they are actually defending themselves.
The hissing sounds like a rattlesnake and deters some predators from looking in the burrow for a meal because who wants to deal with a nest full of rattlesnakes?
“The owls in the photo [at top] look like 30 day olds,” almost ready to fly away, and those colorful bands will enable researchers to ID the birds without putting them through the stress of recapture.
And just to remind you that these adorable birds are in fact efficient and vicious predators, here’s the last bit of the post:
Finally, burrowing owls really are as cute as the photos make them seem, Katie says, “except when they don’t finish a meal. This little guy has the tail of a kangaroo rat still sticking out of his mouth. Yum!”
And, as lagniappe, Matthew also sent me a link to this engraving in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. It’s skating owls, created in the 17th century by the Dutch artist Adriaen van de Venne (1589-1662). Note that they’re carrying their noms. (Excuse the screenshot.)
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Florida Atlantic University’s mascot is the burrowing owl, so of course they are converting the little remaining owl habitat near Boca Raton into a new football stadium and, according to long-term plans, dorms.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2014/04/fau_plans_to_demolish_acres_of.php
The endangered gopher tortoises are also steadily loosing habitat to concrete.
Is a bigger FAU what the world really needs?
What/I> are they thinking?!
Thinking??? I don’t think (see what I did there?) that that word accurately describes what they are doing.
I had a biologist friend who had some burrowing owl chicks to take care of for a few days and was lucky enough to be allowed to help feed them! I remember the hissing. Burrowing owl parents, I was told, cannot count, so these orphan birds were added to another nest. Spiffy little birds and I believe the recovery of the species in my area has been relatively successful.
Ah, a skating owl, with the makings for a nice mousie lunch, towing his lady friend with a rope …wait, what? She doesn’t look any too thrilled with the arrangement …
Love the lagniappe (or however it is spelled ; pronunciatin is anothe queston.
some years ago I got an Owl for my living room cut from interlocking blocks of wood. When I saw a “mouse door stop” elsewhere, I put them together. And now I have to find the camera to photograph the result.
(My sisters called me “Wol” ; I need no excuse.)
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.
I see a lot of owls while hunting coyotes.
It is very impressive to watch them fly through the trees without hitting any branches.
I call from time to time and they land near by. Very majestic.
A couple of those images seem ripe for a ‘create the caption’ contest.
Owls, reminds me of this (some pictures are a little disturbing):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/earth/10925400/Animals-on-the-operating-table-in-pictures.html
Skating owls with their lunches is exactly what I need since I’m feeling exhausted and annoyed today.
That is a wild engraving!
Anyone know just what the legend behind them says?
Something like ‘we suit each other very well’
This is the original painting, now in the Danish National Gallery in Copenhagen
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/04/6a/c7/5a/national-gallery-of-denmark.jpg
Thank you for both pieces of information! Now that’s a painting I’d consider having a print of.
At my last job while still working I was in Lathrop, California and the job was located on Sharpe Army Depot. They had a group of these owls living there and their nesting area was protected. It was a high desert environment with lots of jack rabbits and a few coyotes but these little owls were very cute.
I learned today, to my disappointment, that owl are, well, dummies.
http://www.scienceiq.com/facts/wiseasanowl.cfm
I guess I believed the owl propaganda touting their wisdom. Turns out parrots (!) are the smart ones. I’ll still take owls any day.
Nice article, thanks!
Strange there is such a big deal over a game of bowls in the U S, here it’s quite low key.
Seeing those asymmetric leg bands on the owls reminds me of a paper (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347296900172) which studied sexual selection and the differential reproductive success of male zebra finches wearing symmetrical v. asymmetrical leg bands. Apparently the finches wearing asymmetrical leg bands fared very poorly with the lady finches and produced few offspring, while the finches wearing symmetrical bands did much better. I wonder if the leg band asymmetry I see on those owls might affect their reproductive success in the wild.
Maybe they’ll still be more appealing than the wild unbanded owls.
To me, the owls in the top picture look like they’re watching a UFO arriving.