Otis: An Untypical Owl

Burrowing owls don't seem like 'typical' owls: they live in the ground.  They prefer abandoned gopher holes or other ground-dwelling rodent holes in big, rural open fields.  When I lived in Albuquerque in the very late '60s, I could drive out to the open arid land surrounding the city and see burrowing owls everywhere.  A walk  around the area would bring their little rusty brown bullet-shaped heads  popping  up from burrows all around to see who had arrived.  Then -pop- not a head to be seen until all visitors were again at a safe distance.
 
Just on a chance one day, I visited one of the pet stores in the city. On a high shelf behind the cash register,  there were three burrowing owls in cages. $8 would buy me a wild creature- cage and food extra. The owls were clearly terrified.  Imagine living in the quiet of the open mesa, hearing only the passing of distant cars and an occasional jet heading to or from the nearby air base.  Crickets and coyotes and other owls would have been company, the passing of the wind overhead bringing the odors of the grass and ground around the burrows.
Then one night, trappers arrived at the burrows with nets and somehow managed to extricate the three owls.  I didn't have the heart to ask how it was done.   Remember, this was before it was illegal to trap and/or shoot wild birds.  So here crouched a few terrified owls, fluffed out to the max in metal cages, hearing the yipping of puppies, smelling the mixed odors cat food, dog food, chicken feed, eau de pet store.

I had to buy one, just to get him out of there.

I was a birder then, but I hadn't studied bird behavior, or how birds live their lives.  I did know that burrowing owls eat insects, and New Mexico has no lack of bugs.  Especially cockroaches.  Just wait till dark and no matter how clean your surroundings and how good your housekeeping, they will come.  Being from Oregon, I was horrified that a few hung out under my sink.  God.    

Otis gradually got used to me and if I moved slowly, I could feed him bits of meat from a gloved hand.  At first he crouched in the far corner of his cage, fluffed and hissing, but gradually he learned that I meant food and not harm.  He savored the meat, holding it firmly in one long-taloned foot as he pulled it to bloody shreds.

Burrowing owls are active during the day, and I sadly watched him bumping around in his cage.  That was just wrong. So I started leaving his door open whenever I was home.  Couldn't stand to see this wild little guy in jail.  Birds who eat meat leave very nasty droppings, but Otis was kind of predictable.  If he was kept in his cage for about an hour after eating, he would leave a dropping, then I'd open his door and he had free range of my small apartment.

One or two evenings after starting to let him fly free,  I realized he was taking care of the cockroach problem.  He liked to perch on top of his cage in the dimness of the kitchen.  I could hear him fussing around or grooming in our small space.  He had been perched just a few minutes when I heard the soft whisper of his wings as he launched off the top of his cage, a muffled scrabble as he landed on the floor in the far corner.  I crept out so as to not scare him, and lo and behold, there he proudly stood  with a cockroach writhing in one taloned foot.  It looked like he was holding an ice cream cone.  He enjoyed that roach from the head down, methodically crunching, eyes half closed.  It must have been really good - meat on the hoof, I guess.

So Otis took care of my roach issue.  I started leaving the cupboard doors open, inviting roaches to explore the kitchen floor.  Otis really cleaned up.

But he was a wild bird.   He didn't belong in someone's apartment, spending his life alone entertaining a human.  Burrowing owls live in large groups.  He needed friends.  I watched him watching out my window, turning his head almost to the horizontal if he saw something of interest. He would bob his head up and down quickly if excited, and really could turn it almost three-sixty degrees to look behind him.  He was a gentle, inquisitive, intelligent bird.   

So one sunny day I packed him and his cage into the back of my car.  I blanketed the cage but I could tell he was freaking out.  More sounds, smells, noises.  What next in an owl's life?   I drove out to the mesa where I'd watched burrowing owls so many times.  From afar, I could see the little heads bobbing up, and some owls sitting right next to their burrows.

With my glove, I reached in for Otis and gently took him  from the cage.  I walked a short way into the burrow area, now with no owls in sight, and set him on the ground.  He crouched, totally disoriented, and fluttered away from me.  I sat very still as he spread his lovely spotted wings and flew, low to the ground, away.  I knew no other birds would come up while I stayed there, so I left, wishing him many crickets and small tasty snakes in his future.

I don't know if Otis was successfully repatriated.  I revisited the area many times, but really, all those owls looked pretty much alike.  He could hunt, so I felt that he could survive on his own.

I still think of him, bobbing his head in excitement, then launching silently over the linoleum for a tasty cockroach.   Otis, you still live in my heart.