Bunker typically takes off to hunt around 8:30pm and is
away for most of the night.
Best viewing time is early morning or 5-9pm
Bunker Cam is brought to you courtesy of the Thoms Family
Parkland Golf & Country Club is an Audubon Certified Gold community situated on the edge of the Florida Everglades. PGCC features protected sanctuaries and lakes creating an eco-friendly environment for critters of all kinds to co-exist
with our residents and visitors.
This website will feature the diverse variety of critters that call Parkland Golf and Country Club home. What better place to start than featuring our own“Bunker” the
Burrowing Owl…
Welcome
to Critters of
PGCC
BUNKER CAM
The Burrowing Owl
The burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia), also called the shoco, is a small, long-legged owl found throughout open landscapes of North and South America. They nest in underground burrows that can be 6-10' long. Unlike most owls, burrowing owls are often active during the day, although they tend to avoid the midday heat.
Cowboys sometimes called these owls 'howdy birds,' because they seemed to nod in greeting from the entrances to their burrows in prairie-dog towns. Colorful fiction once held that owls, prairie-dogs, and rattlesnakes would all live in the same burrow at once. A long-legged owl of open country, often active by day, the Burrowing Owl is popular with humans wherever it occurs, but it has become rare in many areas owing to
loss of habitat.
The burrowing owl hunts mostly at dusk and at night, but does much hunting by day during breeding season. Hunts by a variety of methods, including swooping down from a perch, hovering over fields, or running along ground, then clutching prey in its talons. For much of year, feed mostly on small mammals (such as voles, mice, ground squirrels), some small birds. May eat many frogs, toads, lizards, and snakes,
especially in Florida.
Photography by
Kimberly Dawn
When disturbed they often run or flatten themselves against the ground. When threatened they hide in the burrow and make a hiss which sounds like a rattlesnake to scare off the threat. Their main vocalization is a two part coo-hoo call. Unlike some species of owls, these birds have no feather tufts on top of their heads. They also have a light patch of feathers on their chins that is expanded when communicating
with one another.
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