Neighborhood Watch
MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THE OWLS of Marco Island came more than 15 years ago. I was walking down a quiet residential street on this heavily developed barrier island that lies just south of Naples and north of the Everglades. Off to my left, a phalanx of beachfront condos loomed over the Gulf of Mexico. Palm trees rustled in the February breeze, and the bougainvillea blooming in the yards drew my gaze.
When I glanced back down the sidewalk, I found my way blocked by a small owl. I stopped, a bit shocked. I knew Marco Island had a robust population of Burrowing Owls—round-headed, long-legged raptors the size of beverage cans—but I hadn’t expected to find one contesting my passage. I stared. The owl glared. Finally it flew a few yards away into the adjacent vacant lot, landing on a T-shaped wooden perch beside its burrow, which was roped off knee-high like a miniature museum exhibit.
On a planet where wildlife seems so often to be in full retreat, the stubborn owls of Marco Island are a pugnacious exception.
I have been studying owls for nearly a quarter-century, and I am not used to losing a staring contest with a five-ounce owl, in the middle of the day, on a public sidewalk, in the heart of a city. But the Burrowing Owls of Marco are a breed apart. Thoroughly suburbanized, hundreds of pairs occupy burrows dug in empty lots, front yards, strip-mall parking lots, and highway medians across this 24-square-mile island. They are so habituated to humans—more than 16,000 full-time residents, swelling to
