This was a fun one. I just got back from a work trip this week to Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, Florida. Super hot and muggy--especially in suits but we survived the trip. I saw on my Merlin app that there were some Burrowing Owls near our hotel. This is a bird that I saw last year but I did not get any good pictures as they were nesting and we could not get near the nests. Burrowing Owls dig out a nest on the ground to lay their eggs in the spring. Anyway, I convinced my sales person, Rick Bauer into joining me in a pre-work jaunt to see if we can find these beautiful small owls, located near the football stadium of all places, on the campus of Florida Atlantic University. I wasn't sure they would be there but the app reported them in the area within the past 5 days so I was feeling we would get lucky. Got up around dawn and drove about 4 or 5 miles from our hotel and got to see these spectacular birds. Rick and I saw at least 5 of them in the area, but there could have been more. Turns out the Burrowing Owl was named the "bird of the year" for 2022 as so named by the American Birding Association. I didn't know there were "birds of the year" and here we saw one, beautifully posed and back lit, just in the right year. Burrowing Owls are threatened in Florida as habit destruction and fertilization is putting immense pressure on the species. These owls live mostly on the ground in
shortgrass prairie habitats, which are being drained and converted to crop production. Efforts by farmers to reduce the numbers of ground squirrels, prairie dogs and insects means there are fewer burrows available for nesting and less prey to feed on. Definitely, a great way to start the day.
