BURROWING OWL SPOTTED IN AREA.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE

Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- Finding a suitable home's not always easy, but for one rare bird even the perfect love nest won't do.

Tears welled in the eyes of local birders out for a stroll Monday night when by chance they spotted a tiny Western burrowing owl -- which shuns twiggy nests for an underground hole. Once numerous in Santa Clarita, the owls are listed as a vulnerable species statewide due to their dwindling numbers.

"I was shocked, I was so touched and I was very excited," said environmentalist Teresa Savaikie, an avid birder. "I couldn't believe it was in my neighborhood. We were like kids in a candy store jumping up and down -- from a distance."

They are among the smallest owl types, standing roughly 10 inches tall, with some weighing just 5 ounces. The raptors nest in abandoned ground squirrel burrows, often captivating even seasoned onlookers.

"The burrowing owl is one of our charismatic birds, it's a symbol of the wide open spaces we once had in Southern California," said Daniel Cooper, a conservation biologist, who owns Pasadena-based Cooper Ecological Monitoring Inc.

Experts largely pin the bird's decades-long decline on shrinking habitat as development encroaches.

The owls' breeding range is from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, and from just north of the Canadian border to South America. In California that range has contracted, and most of the remaining birds are found in the Central and Imperial valleys, said Rodney Siegel, program director for The Institute for Bird Populations, based in Point Reyes Station.

Surveys conducted in California in the early 1990s estimated roughly 9,200 breeding pairs of owls remained statewide, a precipitous drop from a decade earlier.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game list the bird as a species of special concern, and it could ascend to the endangered species list in the future.

Anxiously returning each night to the spot where they saw the elusive bird, Saugus neighbors Savaikie and Katherine Squiers have come up dry. The happenchance astounded Savaikie, who recognizes dozens of species by their call alone and has spent years tracking the owl.

"It took us a few minutes to believe we were witnessing what we were witnessing," she said. "We just sat down on the curb and observed it."

Like other owls, the species is nocturnal, but they often roost outside the dugouts during the day. They're most active at dusk and dawn, swooping down to snatch a meal of mice or beetles. Savaikie has plastered the neighborhood with fliers asking residents to temporarily lock cats indoors and refrain from applying rodent poison, which is toxic to owls who eat the mice.

Every year, thousands of owls and hawks migrate to Southern California for the winter and some live here year-round. Savaikie's unusual sighting marks a midwinter record, Cooper said. Wintering birds need ample space and food, and low groundcover that allows them to spot predators.

"They're gone from the San Fernando Valley, and along the coast the first overwintering bird in 20 years was spotted last year at Ballona Wetlands ... it's back for the second winter," he said with glee. "It's not like the bird is totally gone from the Los Angeles area ... the Ballona bird proved it can still overwinter -- we need to help them out a little."

The species is surprisingly easy to conserve, he said. "All they need is a big vacant lot and some safe places to live underground, and they can survive very well side-by-side with humans," he said.

A burrowing owl symposium was scheduled in Lancaster on Friday, where experts planned to discuss the species' distribution and conservation strategies.

Conservation groups and government agencies alike rely on data collected by the nonprofit IBP, which has surveyed burrowing owl populations. The group has embarked on a special two-year study that may help shape future conservation plans. Volunteers help conduct the bird census.

"This survey is a great opportunity for nonscientists to participate in data collection to benefit the burrowing owls," Siegel said.

To participate in the IBP survey, log on to www.birdpop.org/burrowing.htm.

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CAPTION(S):

Photo:

(1) A rare burrowing owl has been spotted in a neighborhood n ear Festividad and Mocha streets.

(2) Once numerous in Santa Clarita, burrowing owls are listed as a vulnerable species statewide due to their dwindling numbers.

David Crane/Staff Photographer