{"id":4485,"date":"2015-06-04T20:07:56","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T00:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=4485"},"modified":"2015-06-04T20:07:56","modified_gmt":"2015-06-05T00:07:56","slug":"florida-2015-burrowing-owls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=4485","title":{"rendered":"Florida 2015 – Burrowing Owls"},"content":{"rendered":"

*Click on photos to enlarge.*<\/p>\n

\"~Close<\/a>
~Close up of one of the young Burrowing Owls, Cape Coral Florida, 5\/5\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to get this post together, seeing as the\u00a0BURROWING OWLS<\/strong>\u00a0were one of my favorite birds during\u00a0our Florida trip in early May. To be honest, Burrowing Owls were not entirely on my radar as a possibility for this trip until I was looking through the Birder’s Guide to Florida by Bill Pranty. In it, the author says that the owls are easy to locate in the development of Cape Coral, you just have to keep an eye out for the stakes that mark their burrows. I then looked on eBird to find some recent reported sightings and saw several reports from the Cape Coral Public\u00a0Library. Having never been to Cape Coral, I was imagining stakes WAAAY out in the distance and maybe getting a decent look at an owl or two in the scope, IF\u00a0we got lucky. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The owls are everywhere in the development, mostly on the residents’\u00a0lawns and marked very clearly with white posts and signs! Tricia and I drove around one afternoon and found several active burrows, most with owlets present. What a super experience, and to top it off, I got my only Loggerhead Shrikes of the trip in the development (no good photos unfortunately, they were all backlit).<\/p>\n

\"~An<\/a>
~An adult Burrowing Owl perched on one of the crosses installed outside the burrow. Cape Coral, Florida 5\/5\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"~A<\/a>
~A pair of young Burrowing Owls in Cape Coral, Florida 5\/5\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"~BUOW<\/a>
~BUOW at Cape Coral, 5\/5\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I also did pretty well for other raptors during the trip: Osprey were absolutely everywhere, Vultures and Black Vultures were abundant, SWALLOW-TAILED KITES<\/strong> were numerous,\u00a0I had Red-shouldered Hawks and Barred Owls at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, a Cooper’s Hawk and an Adult Bald Eagle at the Naples Botanical Garden, and of course I had the SNAIL KITES<\/a> and a Red-tailed Hawk near Harn’s Marsh.<\/p>\n

\"~A<\/a>
~A very accommodating Red-shouldered Hawk at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, 5\/5\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"~A<\/a>
~A young Barred Owl at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, 5\/5\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"~I<\/a>
~I did not take many photos of Osprey during the trip, but I could not resist this one at the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildife Refuge, 5\/3\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"~A<\/a>
~A Swallow-tailed Kite flies over our neighborhood in Bonita Springs Florida, 5\/3\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"~STKI<\/a>
~STKI at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, 5\/4\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Another<\/a>
Another Swallow-tailed Kite seen while biking in our neighborhood, Bonita Springs Florida 5\/3\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*Click on photos to enlarge.* I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to get this post together, seeing as the\u00a0BURROWING OWLS\u00a0were one of my favorite birds during\u00a0our Florida trip in early May. To be honest, Burrowing Owls were not entirely on my radar as a possibility for this trip until I was … Continue reading “Florida 2015 – Burrowing Owls”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos","category-raptors"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-1al","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4485"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4545,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4485\/revisions\/4545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}