BIOLOGY

- Appearance

- Diet

- Breeding

- Habitat

- Identification

- Artificial Burrows

Burrowing Owl Biology

Habitat Preference

The Burrowing Owls usually choose their homes in a flat grassy area. Burrowing owls being only 9 inches tall do not like vegetation in close proximity to their burrows to be taller than 6 inches. They will forsake their burrows if the vegetation gets to tall as has been experienced at Mission College when the vegetation height was not maintained to suitable height.

Since there is a major lack of large flat areas, there are ways to accommodate these creatures right in your back yard. These furry looking birds also love native vegetation. Native plants and flowers encourage local insects which the owls have gotten a liking to. A list of preferable plants has been compiled which not only the owls prefer but the indigenous wildlife also can take advantage of.
Click here to view the native plant list.
Note: This list was compiled to suit a California habitat for a particular location.

The Environmental Awareness Association, a Mission College student club, is taking up an experimental project at Mission College. The purpose of the experiment is to plant as many native plants and flowers from the list, and see which species work the best at Mission College. We hope to accumulate a list of our own to pass on our finding for an easier planting, maintaining and better surviving native plant garden.

Recommended habitat maintenance
To prevent any undue damage to both burrowing owls or their habitat the following habitat maintenance procedures is recommended to be followed. This list of procedures were recommended by a Burrowing Owl biologist who had done research with these owls for a number of years.
Click here to view the procedures
Note: This procedures are recommendations of a Burrowing Owl expert.

Building an Artificial Burrow
Although burrowing owls live in the burrows of small mammals they will readily live in artificial burrows. We constructed a mound containing 6 artificial burrows in a circular pattern in November 2000 and by February 2001 a pair of owls had set up home in these burrows. Firstly we choose a location with good drainage and limited interference by road and pedestrian traffic with few or no trees in close proximity. A pair of owls have already moved in and made the burrows we built their new home.

The parts list for one burrow includes a 12 - 14 inch long irrigation control valve box, two four foot lengths of four inch diameter terra cotta pipes, a 45 degree angle terra cotta piece and two gaskets to connect the angle piece to each of the pipes.

We cut out a U shape hole at the top of the valve box and then turned it upside down so the open part was face down on the ground, we then place one of the pipes into the U shaped hole. Placed a gasket at the other end of the pipe and connected the angle piece to the gasket. At this stage we put soil at an angle of 25 degrees to enable the final piece of pipe and gasket to lay at a 25 degree angle to the ground, as per the following drawing. We then constructed 5 other similar burrows in a circular pattern and covered the entire area with soil to a height of about 5 feet.

This is a opening of an artificial burrow at Mission College. The rest of the burrow is buried underneath the soil.