[EBB Sightings] Follow-up on Burrowing Owls in Dublin

Following up on David Bowden's excellent post about the BORROWING 
OWLS in Dublin, we had no difficulty Friday afternoon locating the 
sites he described.
We found the owls at the first three locations but did not see 
anything at No. 4.

The first location (Northside Drive just east of Tassajara) was 
particularly well-suited to close observation from the car and to 
high-quality photography. Because it's a dead-end road, we had the 
street entirely to ourselves and could drive our four-wheel blind to 
any position we wanted for best viewing and shooting.

We easily found three burrows along the first 100 meters of Northside Dr. --
two on the north side of the street and one on the south side, where 
the owl he mentioned perches on the power line. We were able to drive 
within 4 meters of the owls at each of the three burrows without 
disturbing the birds and got exceptionally sharp photos of all.

We were also able to drive very close to the owls along the east side 
on Arnold Rd. at location No. 3. While were shooting photos from the 
car, someone came walking up the sidewalk along that block reading a 
book. We figured he would spook the birds, so we got ready to shoot 
the take-off. Surprisingly, he walked within 3 meters of an owl 
without disturbing it. At that point we got out of the car and were 
also able to approach within 3 meters to take photos without scaring 
them off.

-- Ron Wolf


>-----Original Message-----
>From: sightings-admin at diabloaudubon.com
>[mailto:sightings-admin at diabloaudubon.com] On Behalf Of aquila2 at comcast.net
>Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 9:13 PM
>To: sightings at diabloaudubon.com
>Subject: [EBB Sightings] Burrowing Owls in Dublin
>Since there seems to be a lot of interest in the Burrowing Owls in Dublin I
>thought I'd mention that I know of four (4) active nest burrows in the area.
>All are easily seen from a vehicle and seem to have produced young this
>season.  This evening between 6:30 and 7:00PM I did a quick census to see
>how many I could at one time.
>1.  Tassajara Blvd and Northside DR (100 meters south of Tassajara and
>Dublin Blvd). This is the dead-end access road along 580.  There were 6 owls
>here along the fence line here. One of the owls routinely perches very high
>on a horizontal power line and can be seen from 580.
>2. Tassajarra Blvd and Dublin Blvd.  This is the frequently mentioned site
>near the cross-walk sign.  There were 3 birds here.
>3.  Arnold road just north of Dublin Blvd (the field west of Sybase).  There
>were 8 owls here that were really putting on a show!  The 6 fledgings were
>all above ground on a concrete slab exercising their wings.  They would hop
>up into the stiff breeze and hover there for a while before before
>(not-so-gracefully) returning to the ground.
>4.  Dublin Blvd ~100 meters east of Iron Horse Pkwy.  The nest sight is on
>the north side of the large, diagonal ditch.  There is no place to park so
>this was a drive-by count.  Nonetheless, there were 3 birds easily seen.
>They often perch on the barbed-wire fence.
>SO...20 owls in 30 minutes.  Not bad.  Perhaps Brian Zeiler or Mary will get
>some pictures of some of the youngsters???????
>David Bowden
>Dublin, CA