Reader Gina sent this swell video of burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia). I don’t know where this is, but it sure looks like the group I saw in Davis, California in April, 2014.
As J. A. Baker wrote in his magnificent book The Peregrine, owls always look affronted.
An earlier post from Why Evolution is True, back in February is on Google search. Interesting that it includes the post and the comments. It showed up when googling Burrowing owls (under a heading) Superb owls -Why Evolution is True. Never know where your words will end up…
This is wonderful. The last owl seems to be showing off its one-legged balancing act.
Very cute!
I took some classes at Florida Atlantic University and the campus there used to be crawling with these little owls before all the land was developed. This species is the inspiration for the University’s mascot.
Ok, I have some questions about burrowing owls.
1. Why do they tilt their heads ~ 90 degrees?
2. Why do they stand on one leg? That one is especially puzzling.
Discuss.
I have no idea on the head tilt. I notice my cats can almost do the same. But the owls eyes don’t move around much, mostly fixed. So maybe they enlarge the view by moving the head around.
Some other birds also will stand on one leg. Maybe they are resting the other one?
Or maybe warming up the appendage, one at a time?
I think it is a good idea that the head tilt is to accommodate limited eye movement. But the mystery remains – what do they get out of it?
I was wondering if head tilting had something to do with hearing. Like they can catch sounds bounced up from the ground to the lower ear that way. But again, so what?
As for the leg, maybe they are resting it, but then the one leg has to work twice as hard. And they have to constantly correct their balance b/c they kind of suck at one leg standing, so its extra energy there.
Burrowing owls are cute. But they are also weird.
Last night I nodded off to sleep listening to a couple of owls in the late-summer northern dusk. It sounded like they were hooting at each other; one would do its hoot-hoothootHOOT and then another one did the same.
Then, I awoke this morning to the sound of other birds singing through the same window. There are still some of them now, but as the day warms, the sound is largely being replaced by buzzing insects in the grass.
Living among the sounds of nature is an increasingly rare treat in this industrialized world of ours.
That is true even for some of us who live out there away from the cities because of air conditioning. We have the house all shut up and do not hear all the sounds that are out there. But please don’t ask me to give up the air conditioning.
Hang on a second … Athene is an obviously owlish genus name (Athena’s totem animal is the owl). But the specific name “cunicularia” – is that intended to mean “bunny-like” (hence “burrowing”). Or is there s common root form which both “coneys”and burrowing owl have been named?
Owls are hilarious. Why would you nap standing on one leg in the wind, instead of inside your nice comfy burrow?
Guard duty? It’s weird enough that animals that are graceful flyers (fliers?) decide to live in a hole like a prairie dog.
Napping guards aren’t a whole lot of use!