Burrowing Owl / Holenuil, Konijnenuil

Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia)

Pictures (click on them to enlarge)
© K.D. Dijkstra	© K.D. Dijkstra	© Foek Chin Joe
© Vincent van der Spek	© Vincent van der Spek	© Alexandre Renaudier
© John Mittermeier	© Pieter Teunissen	© Pieter Teunissen
© Karol en Magdalena Bartsch	© Karol en Magdalena Bartsch	© Caroline Spertini
© Klaas de Jong	© Dominiek Plouvier	French Guiana © Michel Giraud-Audine
French Guiana © Michel Giraud-Audine

Burrowing Owl: The first picture is also the first observation of a Burrowing Owl in Suriname, made by KD Dijkstra on the 7th of March 2007 on Zanderij airport. He also made the second picture 4 days later. More people saw the bird that week and Foek Chin Joe took the picture on March 11. The bird looks startled by so much interest in his presence (they always look that way).
Burrowing owls stay near the ground and look around to find prey during the daytime. They breed in a hole in the ground. That they actually breed in Suriname was indicated by the photos of a family and of a young bird by Vincent van der Spek, just below this text and made in February 2011. The next picture was made at Zanderij by Alexandre Renaudier.
The Burrowing Owls are expected to be around on the Sipaliwini savanna also, but have only once been found there in June 2007 by John Mittermeier (sixth picture). Near Paramaribo, along a new road, a bird near his hole was seen by Pieter Teunissen. He took the next two pictures: the hole and some leftovers found near the hole. Pellets were also found. Karol Bartsch saw a bird in The Rosebell Goldmine in the savanna aera of Suriname in 2013.And Jan Hein Ribot photographed an owl on Aruba in February 2104. In French Guiana, the first Burrowing owl was spotted in 2006 and one was also seen in 2007 and 2008. Michel Giraud-Audine saw it more than once and he photographed a whole family in Cayenne in May 2016. It seems they are conquering the Guyanas.
The bird from the Rosebell mine looks like it has many characteriscs of ssp. grallaria, the 'Brazilian' subspecies, also found on the Sipaliwini. Darker breast, among others, than the northern savanna birds.
Dominiek Plouvier made the video of a Burrowing Owl at Zanderij Airport July 23.

Video (click the link or the 'play'-button to see)
Video recording of a Burrowing Owl © ;

Distribution

Each small square indicates the observation of at least one (group) of these birds, the medium ones at least four observations on different days and the largest ones ten or more. The color of each square indicates: blue for coastal area, yellow for savanna and red for rainforest.
Not all places in Suriname have been equally often visited by birders, so the distribution of the squares gives an indication of the whereabouts of the birds, but also of the birders. Some places deep in the south have no reported bird observations, by experienced birders, within 60 kilometer.

Abundance in different areas
coastal zone (blue dots on the map) :
northern savannas (yellow dots (in the north)) :
rainforest under 400 m (red dots) :
rainforest above 400 m (red dots) :
Sipaliwini savanna (yellow dots (in the south)) :
A blank is shown if not convincingly reported in the zone. Data interpreted by Arie Spaans, Otte Ottema and Jan Hein Ribot.

Names
Scientific name:	Athene cunicularia
Order:	Strigiformes
Family:	Strigidae, 14 in Suriname
Dutch:	Holenuil, Konijnenuil
English:	Burrowing Owl
Sranan ('Surinamese'):
Guyana:
Papiamento:	Choco
Spanish (Venezuela):	Mochuelo del Hoyo
Portugese (Brazil):
Arowak:
Carib:
French:	La Chevêche des terriers

Observations through the year	Observations of breeding through the year

The 30 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.	The 2 reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest. Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences. The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Observations through the year

Observations of breeding through the year

The 30 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.

The 2 reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest.

Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences.
The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Last update: September 2024 by Jan Hein Ribot. Please mail your comments, photos to: jhribot ( residing at ) gmail (point!) com.
observations can be uploaded to suriname.observation.org or ebird.org ).