Why We Have Burrowing Owls On Our Front Lawn

Several years ago, a neighbor had some topsoil that he was trying to get rid of and asked us if we knew a place where it could be dumped.

Long before we moved into our home the houses in the area had septic tanks.  We assume that the tank is still located under our front lawn, because there is an indentation on the lawn and when you probe the area you meet resistance. 

We told our neighbor that we would take the topsoil to help level out the lawn.  He backed his pickup truck on to our lawn and dumped the dirt.  In the process, as he drove through the swale on the lawn, his bumper hitch gouged a chunk of grass out of the lawn. 

After he left I tamped the gouged out area of the lawn down and never gave it a second thought.  About two week later another neighbor called an said there was a Burrowing Owl digging on our front lawn. The rest is history. We have had Burrowing Owl's ever since.

Burrowing Owl here in Florida dig their own burrows due to the soft sandy soil.  Out on the western side of the United States, the Burrowing Owls take over abandoned prairie dog burrows rather than digging their own burrows.

The problem the owls run into here in Florida is the fact that they can't dig through the awful stuff we call grass.  When the grass is disturbed such as it was with the bumper hitch, the owls spot those types of areas and can now dig a burrow.

We quickly went to the store and purchased some plastic drainage pipe and a valve box and when the owl was away hunting, we installed an artificial burrow near the area where he was digging. 

With baited breath we waited to see if he would take to the burrow. 

As the saying goes, "Mikey liked it!", and the Burrowing Owl moved in and proceeded to start calling for a mate.  (That is a whole 'nother story for later).

	10 foot Plastic Drainage Pipe and a valve box.
	Pipe divided in half and attached to the ends of the valve box
	Everything was buried underground with only the ends of the plastic pipe sticking out of the ground.