Burrowing owl adventures with Rick Morris of IntheWildwithRick
As many of you know, Menlo Park resident Rick Morris started his walking bird tours in January 2024. At the end of April 2024 — after leading 10 walking bird tours — Rick received an email from a local Stanford professor asking for an evening owl tour. Rick knew about three different owl species within a mile radius of his home but never thought of making a tour out of it. Little did Rick know that this would be the start of something really amazing!
The next day, Rick posted the owl pictures he had taken with the Stanford Professor on Nextdoor and his email inbox blew up, receiving over 50 requests for an owl tour over the next 48 hours.
Fast forward to December 2025 and Rick recently completed his 150th early evening owl tour and is on his way out to lead owl tour number 155.
Rick has met many wonderful bird and owl lovers from our community in his adventures — and thought he would share a few unique experiences.
The day after Christmas 2024, Rick was with his tour group observing a burrowing owl in a rock creek bed and it started to sprinkle (top photos). A Cooper’s Hawk appeared and landed on a nearby post and peered at the burrowing owl. A large healthy coyote suddenly appeared on the hill to the left of the rock creek bed. All of a sudden, the coyote saw the burrowing owl, opened its mouth and licked its tongue and started walking right toward the owl.
“We all gasped and I yelled at the coyote, ‘Get out of here, get out of here!’,” said Rick. The burrowing owl held its ground and miraculously the coyote crossed the rock creek bed approximately 20 to 30 feet behind the burrowing owl. The burrowing owl never flinched — they are known to hold their ground.
A month later, an early January evening, Rick and his tour group came upon the same burrowing owl sitting on a rock creek bed and all of a sudden, a Cooper’s Hawk came flying in and swooped down upon the burrowing owl to snatch it for an evening meal.
“I’ve never seen a burrowing owl move so fast!,” said Rick. “It was like a vacuum sucked him right under the large rocks in that creek bed. Unfortunately it all happened so fast that I was not camera ready for the shot! The Cooper’s Hawk retreated but stayed close by in case the burrowing owl popped back out. We walked by the spot later and the Burrowing Owl was barely peering out from the rocks.”
Another month later in February 2025, that burrowing owl had recently disappeared from its normal perching spot, so Rick had pretty much given up and assumed it had moved on.
“We were on the walking path and walked up to the the same rock creek bed and all of a sudden a crow flew right to the rock creek bed right near us and the burrowing owl appeared and took flight!” he said. “Again, it all happened so fast. It flew away from us along the rock creek bed and landed. I got sight of it in my view finder then it took flight again and you can see the crow and burrowing owl battling in the air. Luckily the burrowing owl got away. It was an amazing experience to watch.”
December to March is a great time to observe burrowing owls in multiple locations. Contact Rick at inthewildwithrick@gmail.com to book an early evening owl tour or to order an owl tour gift certificate as a holiday gift.
Rick would like to give a huge special thank you to his Stanford professor friend for helping him get started with his early evening owl tours!
Photos by Rick Morris (c) 2025
