Listen to Burrowing Owls Hiss Like Rattlesnakes
These tiny desert dwellers use sound to warn away unwanted visitors.
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The Burrowing Owl鈥檚 vocal abilities have raised eyebrows among birders and scientists alike. Because as well as its double hoots and other calls, the Burrowing Owl is known for another hair-raising sound: a long, rattling hiss.
Standing on almost comically long legs, this yellow-eyed owl is very active in daytime, and its hissing habit may have evolved to mimic the sibilant warning given by a cornered rattlesnake. This sonic threat of a venomous reptile could be just enough to warn away most unwanted visitors from the owl鈥檚 nest burrow.
Despite its name, the Burrowing Owl doesn鈥檛 do much digging, though. Instead, it鈥檚 more of a squatter, nesting and roosting in vacant rodent burrows, often those of prairie dogs . . . until it鈥檚 time to eat. Not content with providing the Burrowing Owl鈥檚 accommodation, rodents鈥攅specially mice鈥攁lso provide lunch. Well, they are lunch鈥攚ith a side of large insects. After feasting the Burrowing Owl retires again to its mostly subterranean life.
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Bird sounds provided by at the , Ithaca, New York. Burrowing Owl recorded by G. A. Keller; Rattlesnake recorded by S. R. Pantle; Burrowing Owl rattlesnake-mimic recording courtesy of Jeff Rice for the at Montana State University.
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漏 2015 Tune In to Nature.org August 2014/2015 Narrator: Michael Stein