Prairie Dog Town - Owls in the Burrows

A stop on Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Loop, a free self-guided tour.

Look for the bare, dotted patches of ground along the road: those mounds are the doorways of a black-tailed prairie dog town. Each colony is a busy underground neighborhood of tunnels and chambers. Prairie dogs stand guard on their mounds and give sharp alarm calls when a hawk or coyote comes near, and the whole town dives for cover.

Biologists call prairie dogs a keystone species because so many other animals depend on them. Hawks, eagles, badgers and coyotes hunt them, and ferrets live in their tunnels. Burrowing owls move into empty burrows to raise their young. These small, long-legged owls arrive in spring and stay through summer, and by day you may see one standing on a mound, bobbing its head as you pass.

The prairie dogs are also the reason so many raptors gather here. Scan the fence posts and the sky for red-tailed, Swainson's and ferruginous hawks, which hunt over the towns in different seasons.

Getting here: Follow the one-way road as it turns west across the northern part of the refuge, toward mile marker 7.

Did you know?: More than 330 species of wildlife have been recorded on the refuge, from bison and deer to tiny prairie songbirds.

Photo op: Use the car as a blind: pull over where permitted, roll down the window and wait for a prairie dog to stand up on its mound.

More on Wikipedia: Black-tailed prairie dog · Burrowing owl · Ferruginous hawk

Prairie Dog Town - Owls in the Burrows

Stops on this tour