Big Face is one of my favorites of all the animals I’ve had the pleasure to see. It hung out in the culverts beside a road near Baskett Slough and was fairly tolerant as long as you stayed in your car, so you could get fantastic views just with your naked eyes. One thing these pictures don’t convey is how small of a bird a burrowing owl really is. My previous frame of reference for owls had been the massive great horned owl, so I was stunned to see how small these owls are. Every time I saw it I was surprised again, it always seemed larger in my memory.

Most of the light was already gone when this picture was taken, but the part of the owl shown here was lit up in the golden rays of the dying sun.

Beautiful, beautiful bird.