Growing Pains - A Season in the Life of the Burrowing Owl

Youth is wholly experimental,” said Robert Louis Stevenson. What parents won't attest to that as they guide their developing youngsters through early life? The burrowing owl is a case in point. A small, congenial-looking bird of Arizona's Sonoran Desert, it has a yearly brood that often numbers five or more bright-eyed, rambunctious babies. For an adult burrowing owl, keeping track of its youngsters can become a major effort. To the casual observer, the burrowing owl's family life is pretty much a harmonious affair of sociable gatherings. But sometimes these moments of family bliss are interjected with strife-especially when one youngster tries to dominate a brother or sister by delivering a swift peck to its sibling's head. There are other occasions-such as dinnertime when rivalry among baby owls reaches fever pitch. Feeding them is a tumultuous situation. When an adult owl arrives with food, only one of the clamoring youngsters will get the offering; therefore, the pushier the baby owl, the better its chances of maintaining a full stomach. But thanks to the seemingly tire-less efforts of the parents in supplying their gluttonous youngsters with suste-nance, all manage to get their fair share.

Young burrowing owls also are very demanding in other ways, going to great lengths to solicit attention from a parent. This usually takes the form of preening. The adult burrowing owl always indulges its baby's solicitations, and this usually leads to a preening exchange between them. Scientists call it comfort preening and believe it helps tighten the link between adult and offspring.

For young burrowing owls, daytime around the burrow entrance is more than likely to be filled with a form of play that eventually leads to something very important: flight. While they may not always appear so, the youngsters' constant movements, quick sprints, bizarre leg-stretching, and wild wing gyrations are forms of exercise that strengthen the wing and leg muscles to be used later in flying. As the youthful birds go through their daily exercise routines, a weary adult bird watches nearby-and sometimes drifts off to sleep from the strain.At last the day arrives when all the exercise is put to the test, and the young owls take their first flight. With wings outstretched, a young bird flaps wildly and then, almost miraculously, is airborne, slicing the air, wobbling, as if intoxicated with its newfound skills. Flight is a true sign of maturity, and of time to leave the security of the nest and strike out on its own. And for the parents who have suffered through it all, a moment's rest seems well deserved.

Jerry L. Ferrara is a wildlife photographer and writer whose work has appeared in Audubon, Field and Stream, National Wildlife, and various National Geographic and World Book publications.

Selected Reading

The Birds of Arizona, by Allan Philips, Joe Marshall, and Gale Monson. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978. Available for $41.00, postage included, from Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85009; telephone (602) 258-1000 or, toll-free in Arizona, 1-800-543-5432.

Arizona Birds in Color, by Eliot Porter. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1964.

The Owls of North America, by Allan W. Eckert. Doubleday and Co. Inc., Garden City, New York, 1974.