Burrowing-Owl Mural in Arizona

In response to our recent post on the challenges faced by burrowing owls, artist Teresa Dendy sent us photos of a burrowing-owl mural she painted in Phoenix, Arizona.

A tiny piece of Teresa Dendy's Phoenix mural of burrowing owls.

Teresa wrote, "My daughter and I helped relocate burrowing owls through an Audubon Society program. It has an over 90% success rate and we got to see the chicks. In honor of this program, the lovely dedicated people at Audubon, and these wonderful birds, I painted a huge burrowing owl mural along the Salt River in Phoenix. This is only part of the mural. I don't have a camera that captures all 70 feet of it."

Teresa's riverside mural isn't just beautiful; it also teaches people about burrowing owls' diet and habitat. Here are more shots that she shared.

Note the scale—it's not just 70 feet long but also almost 10 feet tall!

Teresa notes that burrowing owls have a "goofy charm" when parallaxing—that is, tilting and turning their heads to better see an object.

Burrowing owls in Arizona sometimes kill and eat sandsnakes, says Teresa, who studied the owls as part of the Audubon program.

Having lost other burrow options to human development of the land and the decline of prairie dogs (whose burrows they sometimes use), burrowing owls now sometimes nest in human-made objects like drainage pipes. Conservation groups even put those pipes (and other possible burrow replacements) out to help the owls.

Teresa included a chick in this portion of the mural.

Teresa the artist jokingly calls this owl "the critic." 

The volunteer work Teresa and her daughter did to help the owls is inspiring—an example of how all of us can find ways to help animals if we choose to. Many thanks, Teresa! —Craig Neff and Pamelia Markwood

Burrowing Owls in Florida

Thanks to Frank Garcia for this fantastic shot of a pair of burrowing owls. Frank took it at one of the busiest sports complexes in Broward County, Florida—and therein lies a tale about the fascinating but beleaguered burrowing owl.

Photo by Frank Garcia

These small birds, just 10 inches long and six ounces in weight, are longish-legged, ground-roaming owls that hunt in daylight and normally live in burrows abandoned by prairie dogs and ground squirrels, or (particularly in Florida) dug by the owls themselves. Such burrows and the the land in which to dig them are harder to find, however, in a landscape taken over by humans, which explains why as few as 10,000 breeding pairs remain and why some of the owls end up nesting in piles of PVC pipe or other human detritus (sometimes intentionally placed by conservationists to help the birds).

It's interesting to note that at breeding time, burrowing owls cover the ground near the entrance to their burrows with animal dung (which attracts dung beetles and other insects for the owls to eat) as well as human junk such as as bottle caps, cigarette butts and tin foil (which may send a signal to other owls that the burrow is occupied). According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, burrowing owls have an unusually high tolerance for carbon dioxide, a trait they evolved so they could survive CO2 buildup in their burrows.

I remember feeling sickened a few years ago when I read accounts of humans taking potshots at these embattled little owls (as a "sport") when the birds left their burrows. We all owe Frank our thanks for showing us how beautiful these owls are, and reminding us of their fragile status in the wild. (Burrowing owls are listed as a "species of special concern" in Florida.) Like many other amazing animals, these birds were here long before we humans came along. Let's hope they can survive us. —Craig Neff and Pamelia Markwood