Outstanding photograph captain
Came upon another sighting! Source
Like a prairie dog
It does resemble that!
The prairie dog at least ambitious enough to dig a hole, while the owl will just roll around in the grass for a minute to smoosh it down and call it a day.
“Nest” 😁
It’s a wonder they manage to reproduce at all tbh
The Owl Research Institute posted a video to their YouTube yesterday about checking up on Shorty nests for viability. The coyotes got to the nest in the video and got the eggs. The audio quality wasn’t great, but it wasn’t a bad video overall.
It does seem a very poor place to nest, but if they haven’t changed, it must work well enough. We certainly have no shortage of ducks and geese and a good number of forest birds that also nest on the ground.
Nicely cropped!