Volunteers come to the rescue of burrowing owls who lost their longtime home at Driftwood Middle School.

Like the home-improvement TV show, While You Were Out, a group of do-gooders swept onto school property in Hollywood to spruce up a dwelling. In this instance, though, the residence receiving all the attention was for burrowing owls, who for years have been raising hatchlings on a vacant slice of land between buildings at Driftwood Middle School. Volunteers embarked on the project after the owls' old home, believed to be their turf since at least 1992, was destroyed.

During the summer, after the most recent group of owl babies learned to fly and took off on their own, the volunteers installed three artificial burrows. They even provided underground tunnels using lengths of PVC pipe.  "It's safe for them immediately,'' said Kelly Heffernan, an avian biologist who founded Project Perch to protect burrowing owls in Southeast Florida. "It's just like a person. You don't want to start from scratch.''

Burrowing owls are protected by state law, and school officials waited until all the fledglings learned to fly and took off before doing any work on the site. They also provided the owls with a new starter site nearby, by digging out a chunk of land. The Project Perch crew received permission from school officials to take the starter concept even further, Heffernan said. With volunteers and financial assistance from the South Florida Audubon Society, Project Perch built three separate burrows. In addition to the PVC pipe, they installed perches for the birds to stand on while guarding their territory and their families. The crew also poured a mound of white sand at the entrance intended to draw the owls to the new location.

Read more about Project Perch's efforst at the Miami Herald.