Hi everyone, Saw an interesting thing this morning -- for a couple of months I've been keeping an eye on a couple of families of Burrowing Owls in Lake Pueblo State Park. They hang out quite near the road and are not spooked by cars, so are easy -- and fun -- to watch.
Went by this morning to check on them and noticed one of the youngsters pulling at something as if eating it. A closer look showed that it had a medium-sized snake -- a very dead one, as it wasn't moving at all -- and was pulling bits from the end that used to be the head while two of its siblings watched. Looked like hard work to get a few bites. After about ten minutes, the young owl picked the snake up in one foot, hopped one-legged with it to a prairie dog burrow about 3 feet away, and carried it down into the hole. I don't know what kind of snake it was -- it was not strongly patterned, fairly dark grayish-olive on the top and paler on the bottom, and maybe three feet long (what was left of it). Checking in a couple of books after I got home showed Burrowing Owl diet consist of insects, rodents and lizards, but no mention of snakes. Anyone know how much of their diet might be snakes? This was my third snake encounter of the morning, not counting the large recently-shed snakeskin (likely a bullsnake) in the back yard. Other things seen near the reservoir -- several Lark Sparrows singing their wonderful songs, and an Osprey fishing at West Fishermen's Point who finally caught a small fish and flew away with it. Cheers, Margie Joy, who likes snakes just fine Pueblo West, CO Marjorie Joy Words & Images Back-of-the-Book Indexing Fine Art & Illustration http://www.flickr.com/photos/59865...@n00/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Colorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
