A small, long-legged owl that uses burrows in the ground for nesting and shelter.
It has yellow eyes and pale eyebrows, with long legs for its body size and no ear tufts.
In the southern Chihuahuan Desert, Burrowing Owls nested in Mexican prairie dog colonies. During the 2010 and 2011 breeding seasons, researchers found 56 successful nests and compared them with inactive burrows in the same colonies. They assessed four scales: burrow interior, nearby site, colony and landscape.
Nest sites differed in burrow structure and concealment, nearby satellite burrows, vegetation height, active-burrow density and agricultural disturbance. Combining scales explained nest locations better than burrow shape alone. The comparison burrows were also selected inside the same prairie-dog colonies.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service status assessment (2003) · Bird of Conservation Concern; Western subspecies, historical report · United States; Athene cunicularia hypugaea
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2003 assessment lists the western Burrowing Owl subspecies (Athene cunicularia hypugaea) as a Bird of Conservation Concern nationally and in selected regions. It describes differing regional population trends and the importance of grasslands and burrowing mammals. The assessment covers the western North American subspecies.