The burrowing owl isn't your average owl: It doesn't live in trees, and it's not nocturnal. It makes its nest underground — usually in abandoned rodent burrows — and is active both day and night. But ...

Early accounts of the owl in California described it as one of the state's most common birds. In the late 1860s, according to one ornithologist, “burrowing owls stood on every little knoll” around San ...