Wild burrowing owl who dug into recovery program welcomes 5 chicks

A new nest of burrowing owls, hatched by an aggressive female who pushed her way into a recovery program for the endangered birds, has researchers hopeful for the fate of the species.

The wild female showed up at the Manitoba Burrowing Owl Recovery Program release site in June and fell for one of the males.

A field assistant with the program was doing a regular check on the five captive mating pairs when she spotted the little owl, apparently doggedly interested in getting inside one of the pens housing the birds.

Program director Alex Froese said the captive male, seemingly dissatisfied with his selected mate, had been calling out and the wild female responded.

The program got permission to trap the female and a one-way entrance into the enclosure was created. The female burrowed in and has since laid five eggs, which hatched in early July.

"With burrowing owls, generally the rule of thumb is 90 per cent of the eggs hatch and 70 per cent of the young survive, but in this case, 100 per cent hatched and 100 per cent survived," Froese said.

Since the female is wild, she won't stick around for long, Froese said. The team has tagged her and equipped her with a transmitter that weighs less than five grams and looks like a little backpack.

"She will wear this and carry it along her migration. We will be able to get a lot of information about where she is wintering, even her timeline of where she stops over on her migration path," Froese said.

They expect she will migrate to Mexico for the winter.

This is a rare chance to track the migration of a Manitoba burrowing owl. In the past 50 years, the population has fallen dramatically.

In the early 1980s, there were 76 pairs of burrowing owls observed in Manitoba, Froese said. In 1996, only one pair was observed.

The population has risen slightly since then, but recent flooding in areas where the owls nest has reduced their numbers.

Froese hopes the female owl returns to Manitoba and finds a wild mate next season.

The recovery program places five to 10 pairs of captive owls in enclosures near Melita, Man., every year, hoping they will nest. The pairs and some of their young are then released into the wild, with some of the chicks held back for the next year's program.