Burrowing Owl 1-18-26

My friend alerted me to a Burrowing Owl in the South Bay area (location intentionally vague). The next day I gathered my gear and headed down to see if I could find him. When I arrived, there were geese virtually blanketing the area where I thought he might be, so I wasn't hopeful I'd get a chance to see him. But after about 20 minutes of looking, he popped his head up and I spotted him. I snapped off some photos, and then a few of the geese ran right toward him (I don't think they were necessarily going at him, they just happened to run in that direction) and he immediately ducked down into his burrow.

I decided to wait around to see if he'd pop up again. The geese went out into the water after about an hour, but he still hadn't popped up. After 2 hours I got up and started walking around the area to see if there were other burrow entrances, in case he had a network of tunnels and might have popped up elsewhere. I did find about 6 other burrows, but I didn't see him anywhere. After another 30 minutes or so he finally popped his head back up in the original hole where I first saw him. So I'm not sure if he has a network or if he's ever used any of the other burrows.

Since I already had some photos, I decided to switch to video in case there were any behaviors I wanted to capture. For the most part he just sat there, watching everything very intently. I did capture some preening, which is fun. I also got him ducking down into his burrow when something went by, and then I got him re-emerging. For the re-emerging shot, I had engaged my teleconverter to get a slightly more closeup view. In that sequence you can really see his pupils rapidly changing sizes, which I thought was really cool to watch.

All-in-all a wonderful way to spend the day. Thanks Beau! (That's what I've decided to name him - Beau the Burrowing Owl. :-)