SENIORS
She gives a hoot How this Province birder is saving the owls in her neighborhood
BY JEFF CHEW
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Province is a popular birder’s paradise, said Weiss, who is from New Jersey and has watched for birds, identifying them up and down the Atlantic since the 1980s. Weiss, who has curated a checklist of Province birds and waterfowl will fellow birders Richard Foley and Tara Erb, said 126 species of birds have been spotted in Province, which has 25 ponds and lakes. Santa Rosa Wash on the community’s west side and tree- lined greenbelts aplenty add to Province’s bird appeal. Weiss said the owls typically relocate within a mile of a former home. Two owls, for example, moved to a former ground squirrel burrow near the Province corner gate at the intersection of Honeycutt and Porter Roads. Weiss, who was on the Province Advisory Committee at the time, made a presentation to build the five burrows with the help of Wild at Heart. The burrows are basically holes dug in the ground with a half-barrel at the base for a nest and a PVC pipe large enough for the owls to fit through.
AM WEISS AND HER HUSBAND, David, loved to watch the burrowing owls around their back yard in Province.
“They would come back here and nest, and hang out on our patio,” recalled Weiss, the active birdwatcher. That was when her attachment to the pint- sized long-legged feathered friends took flight. It was also before homes were built across the greenbelt. Sensing habitat changes to come, the owls flew the coop. Weiss, while riding her bike up at The Lakes at Rancho El Dorado in 2021, said she ran into a woman with Wild at Heart, a raptor rescue and rehabilitation organization based in Cave Creek. The group takes burrowing owls from building sites around the metro and rehomes them. “They come in and build tunnels and burrows,” Weiss said of Wild at Heart. Today, Province is home to five burrows built in 2021 in a grassy area at West Eclipse Way and North Peppermint Drive. All the burrows are believed to be inhabited, but that could change at any time. They are wild animals, after all.
Unfortunately, the owls left, once the tent was removed. In May 2023, Weiss and Wild at Heart tried again. “A tent went up, we got volunteers, we all fed them frozen mice every day,” Weiss said. “They were tented for a month. We fed them for two weeks previously. And those owls stayed, they stayed for about three weeks and then they took off.” “They don’t like dogs and people walk their dogs in that area all the time, so they didn’t like it,” she said. “They left.” “In December 2023, I just happened to see a single burrowing owl just hanging out by the burrows,” she added, after checking the burrows daily. She invited other birders in her birding group to see the discovery. “It was a female, and it was by itself, and the neighbors started to complain because it became really loud, screeching for a mate,” Weiss said. She finally attracted a mate, and they had four owlets. “Those owlets will leave at some point soon because nesting season is a little later in the spring,” said Weiss, adding that the owlets will likely fly away to be on their own. As for the mated owl parents, she said, “We
The manmade burrow is backfilled with dirt and covered with rock. One end of the PVC pipe sticks out of the ground slightly and serves as the burrow’s entrance and exit. A cross-like perch is installed atop the burrow near the entrance hole. Arizona Fish and Game Department signs are posted near the burrows advising passersby that burrowing owls are nearby, so “do not disturb.” In late February 2022, Wild at Heart brought in a male and female banded pair of burrowing owls. With volunteers and the help of Province resident Joe Gruberman, they installed a tent over one of the burrows, brought in the two banded owls and fed them dead mice for about a month to get them acclimated to the new burrow. “For a month we fed these two captive owls frozen mice every day,” Weiss said, adding the owls were from Buckeye where they were banded. Burrowing owls are protected under the Endangered Species Act and developers are required to move them out before construction can take place. “Most of the owls, I’ve been told by Wild at Heart, come from the West Valley,” Weiss said, because of the construction there.
Burrowing owls and their local habitat photographed in Province on Aug. 30. Wearing yellow, avid birder Pam Weiss watches the animals through a pair of binoculars.
hope they will stay and that they will have a long and happy life together.” To this day, there are four owls inhabiting the burrows off West Eclipse Way at Peppermint, and two more on the Province gate near Porter and Honeycutt. “Those that have left Province have likely flown back to Buckeye,” Weiss said.
InMaricopa.com | October 2024
October 2024 | InMaricopa.com
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