Mike in the Wild

After posting details of my first burrowing owl encounter a couple weeks ago, I was lucky to meet a larger group this week.  But this time it was in the extreme opposite corner of the greater Phoenix area, in Zanjero Park in the community of Gilbert, where I had heard some owls were living.  Since the city has only shed its agricultural roots in the last twenty years or so, it made sense that this field-loving bird might still have habitat there.  So I took advantage of cooler-than-average May temperatures and made the 30-mile ride to see for myself. While I was surprised the park abutted a major freeway, seeing there were still some adjacent green fields made me cautiously optimistic.  Then I saw that the park service had installed a very long row of 50 plastic containers and pipes on an embankment between a pathway and the fields.  It might have been a football field in length, and they were clearly meant as shelters.   It there was any doubt, nearby si...

Everybody knows the owl.  When thinking about him, many Americans will imagine a bird very much like the great horned owl.  Large, pointy 'eared,' with wide-open eyes, he's the quintessential image of this avian.  In fact, symbolizing wisdom and academia, an owl's persona is certainly larger than life. However, how many people have actually seen an owl in the wild?  The great-horned is certainly nocturnal, so a chance to see him in daylight is always limited to when he's nesting or sleeping high in a tree or cactus.  Chances are, most people have heard one many more times than they've seen one.  The low pitched and airy hoots are a sound that few would mistake for anything else. Lucky for us in the American West, the burrowing owl is unique among this order of birds -  he is often active during the day.   And like his name implies, he nests on the ground, mostly in holes, caves and tunnels built by himself or taken over from rodents.  Whi...