It is always great when people within the community come together for the betterment of a species. Whether it is a common mammal, a threatened bird or an endangered amphibian, the notion of conserving habitat is no doubt a worthy cause.  In this particular case, the city of Antioch’s burrowing owls now have a number of extra burrows to potentially call home.  All of which took place just in time as breeding season is underway and  migratory owls are returning.  And dare I say all of this occurred under a recent scar that has marred our local landscape with evictions that displaced 11 residents.

At the Prewett Family Park, just under 30 volunteers converged on Sunday (March 7) in an effort to manage a designated habitat that is quickly becoming barren as owls are finding themselves in the midst of ever growing grasses.  As excavations began with shovels and picks, others used clippers and their hands to clear areas around burrows and pull an inordinate amount of mustard.

And as the hours faded and a line of volunteers hiked away from a job well done, 6 artificial burrows were left to grace the hillside.  A wooden perch positioned above each of the nest boxes signaled that they were officially open for business. 

There are a number of methods documented for the construction of artificial burrows.  A method endorsed and used by Wild at Heart in Arizona has been used to successfully relocate over 1500 owls.  Owl  advocate Larry Jordan of The Birder’s Report recently employed this process to construct burrows in Chico, CA.   In our situation, we utilized the following artificial burrow design as outlined in J. Raptor Res. 42(1):53-57, A SIMPLE ARTIFICIAL BURROW DESIGN FOR BURROWING OWLS by Jack Barclay.  The rope attached to the lid of the valve box provides a future opportunity to locate and open the nest box for the studying, documenting and banding of young.

As I mentioned in my opening, such a conservation project requires the assistance of a number of individuals.  Dee Vieira, an Antioch resident and burrowing owl advocate, did a great job in organizing the installation and along with myself donated some concrete blocks and perches.  Catherine Portman, Burrowing Owl Preservation Society, graciously donated the valve boxes and plastic pipe.  Although we have been planning this project since January, the weather had been less than ideal and thoroughly saturated the soil.  Thus, when a sunny window of opportunity appeared and the ground dried, the Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed were able to quickly mobilize about 20 volunteers on very short notice.

THANKS EVERYONE for your dedication to the conservation of the western burrowing owl.

Tags: artificial burrows, burrowing owl conservation, burrowing owls

This entry was posted by Scott on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 5:26 pm and is filed under Owls, Raptors, conservation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.