Whooo Loves Owls?

Saturday, March 5th was the official start of the 2022 Owl Watch Marco nesting season.

Volunteers gathered at Mackle Park to receive their survey packets and to get an update from

Brittany Piersma, biologist and manager of the Audubon of the Western Everglades (AWE) Owl Watch Marco program.

Brad Cornell, Policy Director for AWE, is very impressed with the kind of involvement from the residents of Marco Island. He remarked that “with all kinds of scary things happening all around the world right now, this room is filled with volunteers who want to do something to protect the wildlife in Marco Island.”

“For an urban city, Marco Island is a very unique place due to the diversity and interest of wildlife here, not just owls, but shorebirds, gopher tortoises, and manatees,” added Cornell.

 “The Owl Watch program is one of the few biological programs where the volunteers track every single owl and that is what makes this program special and unique.”

Community Service Officer (CSO), Ira Warder, spoke to the volunteers expressing the City’s commitment and strong support in protecting all the protected species present on Marco Island. 

According to Warder, CSOs are mostly retired law enforcement officers and retired firemen, and they are all part-timers working three 10-hour shifts. They work very closely with Piersma, who is the AWE’s liaison with Marco Island Police Department and Code Enforcement Officers. Officer Warder refers to the over 70 volunteers as the “eyes and ears”, and if they see any suspected violation, to let Brittany know.

On Marco Island, the “ugly part of growth” is the loss of habitat for many of the protected species such as burrowing owls and gopher tortoises. With the reduction of vacant lots, burrowing owls are setting up burrows on the swales, too close to traffic. The most common violations are construction workers parking on the swales too close to owl burrows. According to Warder, last month, there were eight incidents involving owls – all are “parking too close to owl burrows.” They were given verbal warnings and general education.

Note: During owl nesting season, a 33 feet buffer (from the burrow out) is set up to protect owls nesting sites.

Starter Burrow Program: According to Piersma, the owls lost 80 to 100 nesting parcels, which is a significant amount of habitat loss. To compensate for that loss is the option for Starter Burrows, a program set up with the City of Marco Island, Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation (FWC) and AWE, called Safe Harbor.

If you are interested in a starter burrow in your front yard – Owl Watch will dig a burrow in your front yard with the hope it will attract an owl to your property. This is a new program with 114 starter burrow sites with 11 sites dug by owls. According to Piersma, this is a good start, which means that the owls are trying to adapt to living with people, which is not typical behavior - other species would not live in people’s front yards.

Big kudos to Pam and Wayne Fawcett for monitoring and maintaining 36 starter burrows, which Owl Watch will do for any homeowners who can’t maintain it on their own. If you leave the starter burrow for three months it is going to fill in and not going to attract owls. 

Tell me where the chicks are! One last cautionary message from Piersma to the volunteers: Most of the owl burrows are on private properties and volunteers are required to monitor from the sidewalks using binoculars. Volunteers cannot divulge burrow locations to the public.

There are two public locations of burrowing owls - the Leland bike path and Winterberry Drive.

During the nesting season, approach with caution and stay on the shared pathway while observing the owls.