“Burrowing Owl, Howdy Birds Who Hiss”

Who nests in soil and hisses but isn’t a rattlesnake? These owls, with their expressive faces, long legs, and unusual habits. The Audubon Society says, “Cowboys sometimes called these owls ‘howdy birds’ because they seemed to nod in greeting from the entrances to their burrows in prairie-dog towns. Colorful fiction once held that owls, prairie dogs, and rattlesnakes would all live in the same burrow at once. A long-legged owl of open country, often active by day, the Burrowing Owl is popular with humans wherever it occurs, but it has become rare in many areas owing to habitat loss.” 

These expressive owls live underground in burrows they’ve dug themselves (rarely) or taken over from a prairie dog, ground squirrel, or tortoise in grasslands, deserts, and other open habitats. Hence, population numbers have declined sharply with human alteration of their habitat and the decline of prairie dogs and ground squirrels. In the absence of natural burrows, Burrowing Owls have been known to nest in piles of PVC pipe and other lairs unintentionally provided by humans. Conservationists supply artificial burrows made of buckets, pipes, tubing, and other human-made materials.

Their diet consists mainly of insects, small rodents, and reptiles, which they hunt on foot with small leaps into the air. Before laying eggs, Burrowing Owls carpet the entrances to their homes with animal dung, which attracts dung beetles and other insects that the owls then catch and eat. They may also collect bottle caps, metal foil, cigarette butts, paper scraps, and other bits of trash at the entrance, possibly signifying that the burrow is occupied. Owlets play-hunt by jumping on each other, on prey brought home, or on dung around the burrow.

While capable of producing a variety of cooing, warbling, rasping, clucking, screaming, and rattling sounds, the species is not especially vocal. Most commonly heard is a quail-like two-note cooing made by males during mating and territorial defense. Young owls utter eep calls and rasping sounds, the most intense and prolonged of which may scare away predators by mimicking a rattlesnake’s warning—their claim to fame in the owl world. If adults’ alarm calls and swoops to defend the burrow don’t deter a predator, young owlets huddle in the burrow together—and hiss with an accuracy that can save their lives!

Populations have been declining for many years due to habitat loss and are endangered or threatened in some areas. 

Sources: Audubon Society and Cornell Lab of Ornithology

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