Today We Excavate a Burrow
Paul gets ready to scope the empty burrow. A small camera is on one end of the cord. He will feed the cord into the burrow to make sure there aren't any owls. Can you tell where this burrow is? We were at a local sports complex full of fields -- baseball, soccer ball, and pickleball fields. Owls love to dig burrows on these kinds of flat fields.
This cord is a scope. It has a small camera on the end. Paul will check the burrow with the scope to be certain it's empty.
One burrow was a half-circle in shape.
The scope attaches to his phone. Now, he can see what's inside the burrow's tunnel.
It was empty. Now, we can dig it out.
Paul digs straight down to remove a tunnel like portion of soil. This burrow took about 30 minutes to dig out.
The burrow tunnel went straight out about five feet but many burrows make a sharp right or left turn into a nest chamber.
Then we replaced the dirt and packed it down. The last step was covering the empty, excavated burrow with a 4ft. x 8ft. piece of plywood. The complex staff will replace the plywood with new sod. Then, the baseball field can be used again.
Learning In the Field
Burrowing owl babies are owlets. The one far left looks like it's yawning.
The owlets on the right look shocked at whoever took the photo. 
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