1 December 07
Burrowing Owl
I went over to the Raptor Center this morning before a hike. I wanted to get some sketches of one of the two burrowing owls that are there. Burrowing owls are losing a lot of their habitat here to development and agriculture (and to ag-extirpation of ground squirrels, whose burrows they purloin).
This owl’s name is Hobbit; he’s missing his right wing, so he spends all his time on the ground. This morning we had a heavy frost and he had found a spot in the sun, where he stayed for some time, apparently happy with the distance I had chosen (thank goodness for the monocular; all the sketches shown here were done through it).
I tried doing all the head movements again, bearing in mind that owls can, and do (and this one did) turn their head 180°. Then I tried a colored-pencil sketch, which was going well until two volunteers walked past with a Swainson’s hawk on jesses and Hobbit got spooked…
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I have not yet been lucky enough to see a burrowing owl. I keep going to places they are supposed to be, and looking for a bird that looks like a baked potato with skinny legs.
But so far….nothing.