[insects humming, wind blowing, and birds chirping]
It's in the soil.
In the plants that rise from it.
In the smallest of creatures and the bigger ones that eat them.
It's an inseparable union that holds together a prairie, which means that for each inhabitant, their home is built from the ground up, even if, for some,
it means never venturing all that far above it.
[insects humming, wind blowing, and birds chirping]
Burrowing owls spend the majority of their lives near ground level.
In Florida, they're non-migratory, meaning that every day of every year, they can be found in the same place.
But with such proximity to every twitch and reverberation of their environment, the burrowing owl may hold many revelations about the place
that it calls home, revelations with impacts far beyond their burrow. [slow ambient music fades in]
[slow ambient music intensifies as noises of insects, wind, and birds fade out]
[slow ambient music with piano]
Wedged between the streets and houses that weave together the highly populated suburban communities of Florida's southern tip,
patches of old grassland mark the land's rural history. [ambient music continues as insects humming, birds chirping, and wind blowing fade in]
Many of these grasslands have been purposely conserved or restored in an effort to preserve the kind of prairie habitat that once blanketed this terrain.
In the middle of summer, with few trees in sight, animals on the prairie can only escape the blistering heat by creating their own shade underground.
The owls here are no exception. They have no nests high up in trees, only burrows in the ground.
In one such burrow, a young owl is taking up residence.
But this young owl isn't alone. This is their parents' burrow, and this is one of their parents.
The other isn't far away. With burrowing owls, both parents contribute to raising their young. [music fades out while birds, insects, and wind remain]
The young owl is only a few months old. In the spring, they were an egg, likely one of several, but all of their siblings are now gone.
On average, only one in four eggs survives.
They're now approaching the age at which all juveniles leave their parents to establish burrows of their own.
But until recently, the young owl has relied on their parents to do the one thing that is perhaps most necessary in establishing their independence -
finding and catching their food.
Unlike many predators, burrowing owls let their prey come to them, attracting insects and other smaller organisms to their burrow and rarely venturing
far from their home to hunt.
In order to leave their parents and establish their own burrow, the young owl must become capable of hunting for themselves.
While their abilities are improving, there's still some ways to go.
But in the suburban grasslands in which the young owl is growing up, things aren't as simple as they may appear on the surface. [ambient music fades in]
[insects, birds, and wind noises fade as music intensifies] In 2017, the burrowing owl was listed as a threatened species by the state of Florida.
While citing many potential challenges that the owls may face, evaluators for the state identified one that they claimed not enough was known about.
In the United States every year, more than one billion pounds of pesticides are used in various settings -
to curb the growth of weeds, to kill disease-carrying rodents, and to eliminate insects that feed on crops.
Whether in agricultural fields or backyards, these chemicals promise benefits for meeting the needs of growing communities.
But as mice are poisoned and insects are eliminated, there's a growing chance that the same chemicals that killed them will begin to be accumulated in
the ecosystem, beginning with those predators that feed on mice and insects, predators like burrowing owls.
The amount of any given chemical necessary to kill an insect may not be enough to impact the health of an owl, but over time, and the consumption of many
insects, the amount of pesticides in an owl's body begins to add up.
At the time that the burrowing owl was designated a threatened species in Florida, information was scarce about the levels of pesticides being
accumulated by the owls, and the effects that they may be having in a rapidly changing landscape.
[ambient music fades out while insects humming, birds chirping, and wind blowing fades in]
[insects humming, birds chirping, and wind blowing]
Many of the young owl's contemporaries, like this one who lives nearby, are well on their way to becoming proficient hunters.
[insects humming, birds chirping, and wind blowing]
As the weeks go by, the young owl will soon have to match this.
Today, one of their parents has successfully caught a frog.
As owls may live six to eight years, it's likely that the young owl's parents have had several years of experience in feeding and raising chicks.
[piano music fades in as insects humming, wind blowing, and birds chirping continue]
But the young owl continues to develop their own hunting skills as well.
Owls mostly hunt at dawn and dusk when insects and mice are most abundant. This will be the best time for the young owl to learn and practice.
[piano music and insects humming, birds chirping, and wind blowing]
The young owl relies on keen eyesight and sharp talons to practice catching prey. With any luck, they'll one day soon use those same talons to
renovate their very own burrow.
Most burrowing owls utilize an existing burrow made by other animals or even humans and adapt it to suit their own needs.
Owls often maintain several burrows in close proximity to one another, and may move from one to the other when raising chicks.
[piano music insects humming, birds chirping, and wind blowing]
[piano music fades out as insects, birds, and wind continue]
The long-term health of each burrowing owl, and their ability to raise another generation of healthy owls, are things that many fear will be impacted
by the interconnected needs of those with whom the owls share their space. [ambient music fades in as insects, birds, and wind fade]
Laws and regulations governing the use of pesticides have evolved rapidly over recent decades, and continue to evolve today.
As communities grow, the need to control rodent and insect populations will continue to raise questions about pesticides.
From 2021 to 2022, Florida was the fastest growing state in the country, placing it on the forefront of such questions.
But without more research, more detailed understanding of the interactions between organisms and the pesticides already present here, some fear
that the ecological ripples being created may go unnoticed.
[ambient music and faint insects, birds, and wind in the background]
[ambient music, insects, birds, and wind fade out]
[insects humming, wind blowing, and birds chirping fade in]
It's been nearly a month since the young owl began learning to hunt on their own. As the end of summer looms in the Florida prairies, the time is now
for the young burrowing owl to transition to their adult life.
[ambient piano music fades in] Over the past month they've gained much practice in hunting insects and other potential prey, and in almost every direction,
there are unoccupied burrows waiting for a young owl to claim them as a home.
Once they choose which will be theirs, the young owl will finally be independent.
But in this southern prairie, at the intersection of wild and suburban, where land and inhabitants, new and old, are patched together almost inseparably,
little is truly independent.
For a small owl living on a small patch of ground, their health and livelihood is entrenched in forces much larger than themselves.
It's in the soil, in the plants that rise from it, in the smallest of creatures, and the bigger ones that eat them.
For an owl and for any inhabitant of the prairie, theirs is a delicate, but inseparable, union.
[ambient piano music plays while insects hum, birds chirp, and wind is blowing in the background]
[insects humming, birds chirping, and wind blowing fade out as ambient piano music plays]
[ambient piano music]
[ambient piano music fades out]