Burrowing owl

A western burrowing owl standing on a gravel bank among rice fields in Glenn County, California, in December 2021. Unlike most mimics here, its trick is one you hear rather than see. Burrowing owls nest underground, often in burrows dug by ground squirrels, and a cornered owl, especially a young one, gives a buzzing hiss from the dark. In a 1986 study, California ground squirrels that knew rattlesnakes treated a recording of that hiss almost as warily as a real rattle. It is one of the few well-studied cases of a bird copying a snake by sound alone.