The first stop of the day for volunteers for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday morning was near the Hanford Reach National Monument.

There, sitting near a known burrow atop a stick arcing out of the ground, was a burrowing owl, his head turning from right to left to monitor the desert.

That was just the warmup for volunteers Nancy LaFramboise and Charlotte Reep. Their goal was to check about a dozen burrows actually on the monument for evidence that owls were living there, and, with luck, see an owl at one of the monitoring sites.

With resources tight for Fish and Wildlife, it's depending on about 18 volunteers who have finished a training session and are willing to tramp across the desert each month throughout the six- or seven-month breeding season. Using a handheld global positioning system, they search for 82 burrows that Fish and Wildlife believes have been occupied by owls in recent years and record what they see.

Burrowing owls don't behave as most owls do. They nest in underground burrows, typically ones dug by coyotes or badgers, and hunt during the day.

"It's a very endearing little owl," said Reep, who's the burrowing owl project chairwoman for the Lower Columbia Basin Audubon Society.

They are native to the Mid-Columbia but their numbers are believed to be declining.

"The biggest threat is development," Reep said. "So many places in the Tri-Cities are now covered with houses."

People and burrowing owls can co-exist if the birds have a little open space, said LaFramboise, who also is active in the Audubon Society. The problem is that people and badgers cannot, and the owls often depend on badgers and other animals to dig the burrows they like for their homes.

At the first stop Tuesday, LaFramboise and Reep wandered among clusters of yellow Cusick sunflower blossoms and low purple phlox until they found the first burrow, B-075.

"This one's not occupied," LaFramboise said. "You can see the spider webs. No way are they using it."

"It's probably collapsed," Reep said.

Nearby are pellets -- the clumps of indigestible mouse bones or beetle legs and other insect parts -- that the owls regurgitate. But they're so brittle, they probably are left from last year.

Nearby are two other burrows, both with plants growing in the entrance, another sign that they're not in use. Just last month volunteers had seen a pair of owls at one of the burrows.

"This is real life," LaFramboise said. The pair may have fallen victim to a predator, such as a coyote or falcon. Or they may have moved to a nearby burrow, although the volunteers couldn't find one that was being used.

The next stop was on land clearly suffering from last summer's wildfires. Blackened sticks left from sage and other brush stuck out of the sandy ground and dormant native grasses crunched beneath their feet.

But there was no evidence of owls. At burrow after burrow, LaFramboise wrote in her notebook "not active" and "cobweb covered" or "plants growing in opening."

"It's discouraging, but we hope they've moved on and found another hole," LaFramboise said. They seem to move almost annually, she said.

As the volunteers approached the ninth burrow on their list, they finally started seeing an encouraging sign. The ground was splotched with white droppings. And as they approached the burrow, they could see the opening was cleared and well worn. Pellets lay on the ground around it.

A nearby stake in the ground surrounded by droppings showed more evidence that owls were using the burrow, even if they couldn't be seen.

"The males like to see what's coming and call an alarm," LaFramboise said.

But the find that brought the most excitement was the carcass of a small snake, likely a gopher snake, surrounded by pellets and droppings.

"He's eating," LaFramboise said. "That's a good thing."

"It shows you how weird we are," Reep said, laughing. "We get excited by poop and pellets."

The study of general trends in burrowing owl population was started in 2001, and this year volunteers will monitor until August or September, the end of the breeding season. Although some males are known to stay over winter in the Mid-Columbia, most fly south. A previous banding program tracked birds to the Eugene, Ore., and San Francisco areas.

Each year about 20 percent of the burrows have collapsed and about 10 percent to 20 percent are active, said Heidi Newsome, a Fish and Wildlife biologist. Volunteers, who come from several agencies and clubs, also are looking for active burrows not yet discovered to make sure the study has enough data to produce valid results.

It wasn't until the 11th burrow checked Tuesday, one where owls had been spotted just the day before, that a male owl startled and flew low over the ground to land at a burrow.

LaFramboise called them satellite burrows, the perfect complex for a growing family of burrowing owls.

Sure enough, at one of the satellite burrows, the white eyebrows of what was likely the female owl peaked over the dirt. Then she too popped up and flew to another burrow.

She probably had babies, LaFramboise concluded. The volunteers went no closer, not wanting to disturb her.

"No data is data," LaFramboise said, about the many vacant burrows. But it was still a nice reward for their efforts to see owls.