Who nests in soil and hisses but isn’t a rattlesnake? These owls, with their expressive faces, long legs, and unusual habits. The Audubon Society says, “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 habitat loss.”

These expressive owls live underground in burrows they’ve dug themselves (rarely) or taken over from a prairie dog, ground squirrel, or tortoise in grasslands, deserts, and other open habitats. Hence, population numbers have declined sharply with human alteration of their habitat and the decline of prairie dogs and ground squirrels. In the absence of natural burrows, Burrowing Owls have been known to nest in piles of PVC pipe and other lairs unintentionally provided by humans. Conservationists supply artificial burrows made of buckets, pipes, tubing, and other human-made materials.