Inspired by the Great Horned Owl thread, and not wanting to take it off topic, I thought I'd show some shots of one of my favorites, burrowing owls. Cool little birds, often found in prairie dog towns, often on their own. We had a bunch show up near my mom's house in Hale County two years ago. They did not show in 2017 or 2018, but here's some shots from 2016, and I'll watch for them in 2019.

Little extra in the photo below. See it?

Couple more. I like this guy, standing on one foot in the snow.





And this isn't a great photo, except the low sun angle effected his pupil dilation, which made it a cool shot.

Very cool birds, and great shots. I know of birders that sometimes go to the panhandle to see the Burrowing Owls up there.

Up until last year, there was a Burrowing Owl that wintered down at Anahuac NWR near Galveston for several years. There was a large concrete slab near the fence in a cow pasture that had a burrow going under one corner. The owl would set up shop in that hole. It was quite the celebrity when it was around.

Hurricane Harvey unfortunately put an end to that. The hole got filled in by sediment from the storm, and the little owl hasn't been seen since. I managed to get some shots of it the year before, neat to see in person.

The slab under which it lived.

Great photos! On the pupil size, many birds have skeletal muscle in the iris and can voluntarily control pupil size of each eye. Different than mammals in that regard. If you look at labs' photo of his owl, pupil size in that shot is different as well. I've always wondered if it would be cool to be able to voluntarily control your pupil size independently or if it would just be another body function to have to control. I mean who wants to have to remember to breathe, beat your heart, etc. - at some point the autonomic nervous system was made for all of these things. Why aren't bird pupils under complete autonomic control? Just food for thought. Random useless fact of the day....

Did everyone see the second owl?

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