Burrowing Owl

Welcome to Burrowing Owl. This is one in a series of student-driven puzzle caches devoted to the wonderful organisms that inhabit Colorado. Enjoy learning about this adorable and fantastic avian.

The burrowing owl is a small brown owl that lives and breeds in Colorado in the summer. The average height is 23.5 cm, The average wingspan is 55.9 cm (Lewis). Its domain is eukaryota (not a single celled organism). Its kingdom is animalia (animal), its phylum is chordata (has a spine), its class is aves (bird), its order is strigiformes (owl), its family is strigidae (true owl), its genus is athene (small and white speckled) and its species is cunicularia. A common burrowing owl has a beige underbelly, a head shaped like a half circle, yellow eyes and a yellow beak. Its eyes and beak are surrounded by a white pattern.

Burrowing owls eat small mammals like moles and mice in the spring and the beginning of summer. Later in the year they start eating insects, especially crickets and beetles. Sometimes the small owl also eats seeds, fruit, smaller birds, reptiles and amphibians. Although they eat smaller animals they are also eaten by larger ones. Other owls, badgers, foxes, hawks and weasels also prey on the bird.

Burrowing owls live in deserts and grasslands and take over abandoned ground squirrel, prairie dogs and tortoise holes, or they dig the nests themselves. The small brown bird keep the rodent population in check, keeping them from using up all of the natural resources. The letter f is worth the number one. They live only in the Americas, and some of them live in places around South America and the end of North America year round. Some subspecies of the burrowing owl come up to the United states and the bottom of Canada during the winter and places around Central America during the summer. The subspecies Athene cunicularia hypugaea is the bird that lives in Colorado.

Young burrowing owls can give a rattlesnake like buzz to scare off predators, making the predators scatter from the familiar sound of the venomous snake (Jones). The wide eyed aves is diurnal, meaning it is mostly awake during the day, setting it apart from most owls during breeding season, but then switch to being more nocturnal towards non-breeding season. The breeding season of the owl starts in March and ends in August. They usually have only one mate, but there have been some cases of a male having two mates. The burrowing owl has a type of camouflage where it hides most of its body inside a burrow, but it sticks its head above the top. Because of the color of the owl’s head it blends into the usual habitat of the owl with its brownish beige head.

The burrowing owl population is declining due to human interaction with their habitat. Humans have disrupted the populations of burrowing owls by eliminating the animal population that make the burrows that the burrowing owls live in. In the IUCN Red List they are listed as least concern, but in Colorado, Florida and Mexico they are listed as threatened. In Canada they are listed as endangered. And in the United states, Mexico and Canada they are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The burrowing owl’s average lifespan is from 6-9 years. They become able to mate at around one year old. The female burrowing owl usually lays from 4-12 eggs. The eggs are then incubated for 28-30 days.

These adorable avianscan live for at least 9 years in the wild and over 10 years in captivity. If you would like to go see them, your best luck is around twilight, and definitely during the summer when they travel north to mate.

N39 AB.CDE W105 FG.HJK

A = The average height of a burrowing owl is 23.__ cm.

B = Their average wingspan is 55.__ cm.

C = They usually lay clutch between 4 and 1__ eggs

D = While burrowing owls live up to 9 years in the wild, they can live over __0 years in captivity.

E =

F =

G = The number of days after hatching that these birds (or any birds) drink milk for nutrients.

H =

J = The number of owls.

K = The hatched eggs usually incubate for 28-__0 days.

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