In rebuttal to Danielle Lee’s review, I welcome criticism as a way to improve my writing.  This is my first book, and despite multiple readings and running it through a 2 editor correctors it seems every time the text was saved, something changed.  Proofreading was the most frustrating part of writing this book.  After reading it so much is was difficult to pick out duplicate text and I am sure it still exists in updates to the book. Her criticism is correct and recent updates to the book have corrected most of these issues.

In reference to adding a site such as Rotary Park to my book, in all fairness in over 22 years I have only seen one Burrowing Owl at Rotary Park.  That was one night when Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife was having their monthly meeting, a Burrowing Owl was peeking in the window.  Next revision, I will include Rotary Park, however, since they are home to the Annual Burrowing Owl Festival and are a valuable partner with Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife in protecting these wonderful birds.

Danielle also mentions that I did not include the famous Cape Coral Library site.  Years ago, this location had many active burrowing owl sites.  The site was used to provide training on how to install a starter burrow on your property .  Photographers and visitors from all over the world came to this site to see the owls as it was widely advertised on the Internet as the place to go.  Often you would see visitors standing inside the protective poles to get a closeup photo with their IPhones, or a photographer with a 500 mm lens lying within a few feet from the burrow to get what I call a “tonsil shot”.  The owls were so over disturbed that they left.  Now there is only 1 active burrow at the library. I no longer tell anyone to go to the library site to see the owls.

Beverly Ahlering Saltonstall