Jack would have loved this bird! A Burrowing Owl, at the moment sans burrow, perched on a rock just down the embankment at Bolsa Chica from where I and a friend stood, cameras in hand. It looked up at us almost dismissively. We, on the other hand, stood drooling (figuratively, I hope) at the chance to take photos of an owl up close. Despite the bare ten feet between us, the bird owlishly shrugged us off and went back to preening. It had seen this all before. People. Cameras. Pshaw! Feather structure’s a lot more important than are such distractions.

But Jack was not there. Jack Bath, I mean, one of the seven founding board members of EHL, had passed away just over two years ago. Burrowing Owls were his métier. These little owls had burrowed themselves into Jack’s soul, and they had no stronger advocate in the conservation community. In some quarters, Burrowing Owls, with a range spanning much of North and South America, are considered of least conservation concern. Jack would not have agreed.

Once common in Southern California, they have all but disappeared as breeding birds. They require open spaces and ready-made burrows for nesting. Unusual among owls, they can be found foraging at almost any time, hunting for arthropods and small mammals. Ground squirrels provide both home—empty burrows—and table fare. But as we all know, locally, such open spaces have mostly been plowed under for housing and agriculture. In the Antelope Valley on Tejon Ranch there are still owls. But some of the last known burrowing owl nests in LA County were on fields with ground squirrels at Cal State Dominguez Hills. When the ground squirrels were poisoned to clear the land, the owls disappeared along with them. That story is unique only in the details.

The bird at Bolsa Chica is surely a young bird that has migrated to this spot, perhaps part of the winter dispersal of the owls from northern breeding grounds. Those breeding grounds, too, are under pressure from land conversion. Nor is habitat loss limited to the United States, it is a problem for the birds throughout much of their range. So take this opportunity to see one of these birds at close range while you can. It’s at Bolsa Chica now. Who can say where next time?