Aruba

In Aruba, you can see a tiny owl digging its nest straight into the sand.

The shoco is Aruba’s national bird and a subspecies of burrowing owl found nowhere else. It lives in open, dry areas and sand dunes, nesting in burrows in the ground.

That habitat is under pressure. Parts of Aruba’s coastline are losing sand through erosion, while beaches and dunes are also affected by development and tourism. Shoco nests are therefore being mapped, and artificial burrows are being created in some places.

A national bird that does not build its nest in a tree. It digs down into the sand.