Every evening at dusk at a certain spot high in the hills on Penticton Indian Band land, a distinctive chirping screech fills the air — the burrowing owls are talking, and some are swooping home into their underground dens. 

The tunnels are dug by the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of B.C., part of a province-wide push to save the at-risk species.

One of their ongoing projects involves working alongside PIB Natural Resources, and they are happy to report eight juvenile owls were born and raised in the area this year. The goal is to put harmless bands on the babies' feet so the research team can track their progress. 

On an evening this week Lauren Meads, executive director of the BOCS, and Jalisa Kruger, program supervisor and PIB member, took Castanet out into the hills to see the work firsthand and learn more about the banding program. 

"We have banded some of them already but some of them were flying, so we are going to see if we can catch some of the ones that are already flying," Meads said. "They start flying at about five or six weeks, so there's a very small window when we can catch them, sort of at four weeks old, but some of these guys grew up a little quick." 

Around half of the birds have already been banded. The bands are colour-coded so that when they migrate, any researchers who spot them will know where they come from.

"We put a green over black band, which means it's a B.C. burrowing owl," she explained. "And we also put a U.S. Fish and Wildlife silver band on there so that will identify them anywhere they are found across North America." 

The banding mission involved placing live traps in front of the burrows and disguising them with rocks and twigs at dusk, when the owls are particularly active. 

Meads placed a recording of an owl hooting inside each trap as well. 

"So they'll want to investigate," she said. 

It's patient work — after trekking around the hillside to outfit each burrow with a trap, Meads and Kruger stood by their truck in complete silence, hoping the birds would forget about their presence and return to their dens. 

For Kruger, the whole project is a dream. 

"I didn't imagine there was a job like this, to help bring back a species at risk," she said. "We have tales and old legends on the owls, and it's a part of my culture and my history. This job is a part of who I am."

The owls will migrate south starting in the early fall, but Meads is hopeful it won't be goodbye forever. 

"We're hoping then in March of next year, they will come back, and we can identify them by their bands."

The Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of B.C. releases around 100 captive-born burrowing owls per year around the province and tracks many more born wild as a product of those releases. For more information or to help their cause, click here.