Gooseville, WI Hope, AZ Gooseville, WI
In the years of my retirement I've skipped out on Wisconsin snow and cold to bask in the summer weather of Arizona in the winter. This winter our small rural community of active 60, 70 and 80 year-old snowbirds was asked by Audubon-Southwest and Wild at Heart, Inc. to take on a Burrowing Owl relocation Downtown Owls project.
Our Hope volunteers helped build 20 safe underground burrows with tents for 40 burrowing owls that had been displaced by Phoenix neighborhood and commercial developments. The rescued wild birds were placed in their new tented burrow homes in pairs, 140 miles from Phoenix in our valley between the mountains with access to water and farm fields.
For 5 weeks our volunteers brought 3 white mice once a day with water for each burrow from the freezer provided. Once a week I had to postpone my shower until the bucket of mice defrosted. That was alright because the ATV trip was a dusty 20 mile roundtrip for the volunteers.
In January the tents were removed and the burrows set free. We brought their 3 mice a day diet for another 9 days or so until the freezer was empty. We were saddened to discover one plucked pile of owl feathers by a Cooper’s hawk at the entrance of one burrow. We’d worked hard to save all 40 Burrowing Owls.
We were all vaxxed up and boosted. We were a group of close knit volunteers...and then the sniffles and scratchy throats hit us all. Within days, the few at-home covid tests that could be found or bought showed positive. Our 2 local hospitals, each an hour away closed their doors as full and overflowing with Omicron infection. Our local clinic closed as the virus swept through the community like a tsunami.
We all retreated into our shelters and isolated for 10 days. We were grumpy sick, foggy, fatigued, a little feverish, and coughing from the snot and phlegm. No one got sick enough to feel the need for a hospital. Some only had sniffles and a sore throat. We closed all indoor activities and get-togethers for a month and it passed by. Happy hours resumed.
I finally got my sense of smell and taste back last month and am still suffering long-haul fatigue and permanent foot neuropathy from my breakthrough infection, but I have opposable thumbs and long legs to hit the trails that Cody loved. Thank science for our life saving vaccines.
I can’t wait to get back this fall to see how our Burrowing Owls are thriving in their new habitat.
What’s new in your neighborhood today? I’ll bet you’ve never seen a burrowing owl eat a defrosted white mouse! They are so cute!