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Following the success of last year’s Burrowing Owl project, Prescott Audubon is again helping Wild at Heart (WAH), Prescott National Forest and Audubon SW with a project to relocate Burrowing Owls displaced by development to a second location in Paulden.
On March 21, about twenty volunteers constructed artificial burrows . The trenches had been dug ahead of time and protective chicken wire was already set in. The volunteers placed the burrow chambers (one-half of a 55-gallon drum) in the trenches and installed flexible tubing from the drums to where the burrow entrances will be. With so many volunteers, the work went quickly. Later, a backhoe was used to fill in the trenches.
Future work days will involve setting up tents over the burrows and “hardening” the tents against predators like coyotes. Owls are placed in the tents for their first 4 weeks in a location, to promote site fidelity; volunteers will feed the owls daily for at least 5 weeks. The owls currently held by WAH are slated for warmer locations like Salome. Watch for future updates regarding when WAH has collected the owls for Paulden!
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