Saturday, February 6, 2010

Western Burrowing Owls at the Berkeley Marina

Burrowing Owl at Cesar Chavez Park

After spending an hour or so around sunset the night before at Cesar Chavez Park on the Berkeley Marina (see the post), we came back the next day to try our hand again at spotting the western burrowing owls that winter there. I've read that there are five individuals there this winter, and we spotted only two of them on this trip.

Camouflaged burrowing owl

These guys are actually quite small (not all that much bigger than the ground squirrels that were so abundant in the area), and were really hard to spot initially. They blend in perfectly with the area around their burrows.

Burrowing Owl at Cesar Chavez Park

Mostly they spent their time squatting in or right by their borrowed burrows, and we only saw this one fly once over a short distance. Unfortunately, it was due to a human visitor who decided it was pertinent to make hooting sounds and lean over the protective fence towards it. This spooked the poor little guy and it flushed back to its further away hole. This was really a bummer for me, since this was the only time we found one of them close to the fence, and with a nice green area around it too.

Burrowing Owl at Cesar Chavez Park

Once back to the burrow, he stood outside of it, and we got to see all of him for a short time before he dropped back inside. Regardless of if it was inside or out of the burrow, those big golden eyes were always dancing about.

Burrowing Owl at Cesar Chavez Park

4 comments:

  1. Wow, what a treasure to find in the midst of the Bay Area. I used to live in Alameda on Bay Farm Island and there is truly an amazing world of birds to be explored upon her shores.

    Excellent series.

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  2. You got some great photos of them! I saw my 1st Burrowing Owl only a couple months ago up in Humboldt. Love the little guys. Your pictures are excellent! You may already know about this but CDFG gets a big thumbs down for their Burrowing Owl negligence. Check this link out:
    http://journowl.com/index.php/archives/1236
    Today there is a conference in the Bay Area about this - my husband and a biologist friend are there and so is Larry (the Birder's Report - http://www.thebirdersreport.com/page/2).
    Sorry for the lengthy note! Love the shots you got!

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  3. Wonderful images, Pat. So wonderful to see these cute little guys in the area.

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  4. Thanks, everyone! It really is a pleasure to view these little birds of prey. While its somewhat surprising that they've taken up an annual residence in such a well-used urban park, it is quite nice to be able to take only a short trip to visit them.

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