Sagebrush Sentinel - Burrowing Owl

Fine art reproduction printed in-house with professional-grade inks on archival, cruelty-free cotton paper. Open Edition and signed by the artist. Ships flat in a rigid kraft mailer with sturdy acid-free backing board for easy framing.

Burrowing Owls are small, fierce little guys. They are somewhat adaptable and can live in a range of open-air environments like the high desert of Oregon, the low deserts of the southwest, and even in some urban spaces like the fields around San Francisco. Despite their relative adaptability, they are considered “vulnerable or imperiled” throughout their range due to habitat loss and degradation, pesticide poisoning, decline in prey animal species, suburban sprawl, and more. Ongoing efforts to protect them include restoring native habitat and attempting to list them as an endangered species, particularly in California where the population in the Bay Area faces all of the risk factors listed above.

They nest on the ground and don’t actually burrow their own dens but repurpose abandoned dens of coyotes or foxes. These owls will gather animal dung and display it around their nest site to conceal their smell and confuse predators.

This Burrowing Owl peeks out as us from a sunny swath of Rubber Rabbitbrush and Big Sagebrush.