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. :-)