Burrowing owlets are growing up

While traveling along a desert road, I happened to notice a lone burrowing owlet standing stately on the lip of a burrow. By the amount of white-wash poop around the burrow, I assumed that it was not a lone chick of the pair roosting on the sagebrush a hundred yards away.

It watched me and for some reason, turned its head sideways; maybe I looked better in a vertical shot than a horizontal one. I watched it as it chased and captured a hapless grasshopper for a snack, and then it stretched out its growing wing. Young burrowing owls always put on a show for observers.

Finally, after about 15 minutes, I saw another owlet peek out of the burrow, causing the parents to call to their two kids. “Just being parents,” I thought, but the calls of the parents caused another owlet to jump out of a nearby burrow and run to the other two.

As I watched them, it appeared that the one peering out of the burrow was a younger one or that it was slower in developing its feather structure and survival skills. The three continued to play; catch grasshoppers; stretching (especially their wings); doing some jumpstart, short flights and ignoring their parent’s warning calls.

When a large loud truck came flying by, the two more advanced owlets flew off to their parents. The one left behind quickly dove down the burrow but came back out after a few minutes. It stretched its wings, caught a grasshopper and swallowed it whole, which appeared to get caught in the owlet’s throat. After several large yawns, the snack disappeared down the hatch – lunch was successful.

As the sun got hotter, the two other owlets returned, and all three disappeared down different burrows. As long as I stayed there, the parents did not return, but watched from a distance, occasionally calling to the kids. After a half an hour without any activity from the burrows, I headed for home.

Burrowing owls are interesting characters, with each owl creating their own humorous habits as they grow. They are known for developing facial expressions and playing with each other as they grow. While learning to fly, they can be very awkward with most attempts ending in a cloud of dust.

The burrowing owls of southeastern Idaho usually arrive in late April or early May and they will start leaving in late August or early September. That means if you want to observe the youngsters putting on a show, you only have about a month to find them and watch them. They usually winter in Mexico, Arizona, southern Utah or New Mexico.