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Long-absent burrowing owls are popping up in Costa Mesa’s Fairview Park

by in News

Burrowing owls – cute little birds with long legs and serious expressions – have been spotted at Costa Mesa’s Fairview Park in recent months, and experts are hoping they’ll stay and multiply.

Historically, they nested regularly in Orange County, said Barry Nerhus, a biologist who works on contract for Costa Mesa and provides expertise at Fairview Park. In the 1970s, at least anecdotally, “every open lot would have a burrowing owl,” he said.

But extensive development and the use of poisonous pesticides to kill insects and rodents – key food sources for the burrowing owl – caused a decline in their populations here and beyond, Nerhus said. The nonprofit advocacy Center for Biological Diversity reported in 2010 that breeding burrowing owls “have been largely eliminated” from about 14 counties including Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego.

They were once described as one of California’s most common birds.

  • A burrowing owl found at Costa Mesa’s Fairview Park was caught, banded or tracking and released. Officials hope recent sightings of the birds mean their population will make a comeback in the area. (Courtesy of Barry Nerhus)

  • A burrowing owl sits in the grass at Costa Mesa’s Fairview Park, where the species was recently spotted after years of absence. (Courtesy of Barry Nerhus)

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  • Biologist Barry Nerhus handles a burrowing owl at Costa Mesa’s Fairview Park, where the bird was banded for tracking. (Courtesy of Barry Nerhus)

  • Zoologist Peter Bloom puts a leg band on a burrowing owl at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa in December. (Courtesy of Barry Nerhus)

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Nerhus and Fairview Park Administrator Cynthia D’Agosta said they hope that trend will reverse locally. Four of the birds have been seen this year at the 208-acre park, most of which is natural and undeveloped and houses several types of rare and endangered plants and animals.

“What they like are open hillsides,” D’Agosta said, and Fairview Park has plenty of those.

The owls use holes left by squirrels, gophers or other burrowing animals as their home base, and they hunt in grassy fields and wetlands both day and night.

Nerhus and zoologist Peter Bloom recently caught two of the Fairview Park owls with nets and Bloom banded them for identification and tracking.

They’re only wintering here for now – they’ll go elsewhere to breed this spring – but recent work to restore Fairview Park’s wetlands and efforts to maintain the park and create a long-term plan for its future could make it more hospitable to nesting owl pairs.

Nerhus also hopes more can be done to remove invasive species from Fairview Park, and to encourage park visitors to be responsible and owl-friendly by keeping dogs on leashes and by staying on marked trails.

The goal is to someday have resident burrowing owl families in the park, Nerhus said.

They’re fun to watch, Nerhus said, but the species also helps control insect populations by feeding on them, and they serve as food for hawks, coyotes and other predators.

“I think they’re also maybe an indicator species,” Nerhus said. “They left, and maybe that’s showing that our ecosystem is not healthy.”