Trudging across the desert is hard.
Extremely hard.
Imagine attaching ten-pound weights to your totally stylish knee-high leather boots and having to lift your feet up to your knees just to take one step, and then add the blazing sun overhead roasting you alive like a lobster in a boiling pot of water, and finally, the ever-present danger of snakes, scorpions, hungry camels wishing to lick your hair, and other nasty desert critters that could very well be hiding behind the next dune.
Well, it wasn't exactly a planned trip. You profusely curse your bird-crazy boss for sending you here to photograph some kind of desert bird...furrowing cowl...no, Burrowing Owl. But, of course, if you don't, then he would have nothing to show his friends at the next Bird-Con, and due to his advanced age, could not do it himself and would not deign to use Google...and that's when you stepped in and stupidly volunteered to photograph one of the blasted birds, thinking that if you got on his good side, he would give you that raise you so desperately coveted.
Heaving a heavy sigh on your oh-so-miserable life and luck, you continue to heave your sand-filled boots and scorched bottom across the ridge of yet another dune. When suddenly, a loud hiss splits the air, and you feel something strike your boot with such force that it knocks you flat on your back. You had idiotically trod on a mean-looking snake-good thing those fangs aren't strong enough to penetrate your thick leather boots.
However, the sudden impact into your shin startles you something fierce, and you instinctively flail your snaked-up boot and kick the blasted thing right off, then scramble to your feet, only to find that it had immediately righted itself a mere five feet away and was coiling itself up to stroke once more.
You then proceed to do the most natural and cool-guy thing ever: attempt run away like a six-year-old girl being chased by one of those satanic creatures known as "clowns".
Of course, though, your boots are filled to the brim with sand, causing you to fall on your face in a very undignified manor, thus leaving your fleshy and scorched bum a clear target for the serpent behind you. So you shut your eyes tight and prepare your body for the painful bite and stinging venom of the snakebite that's sure to follow, when you hear a high-pitched chipping noise, something not unlike the sound of a sparrow that just stubbed its toe on something and begun to swear rapidly in bird-ese. This chipping sound is followed by a mad rush of flapping sounds and an alarmed hiss from the snake, which seems to have lost interest in your buttocks for the moment, and as you haul yourself onto your back to see what the heck was going on, you see a sight that you will forever remember as "extremely badass".
A small brown, tan, and white bird with bare, featherless, long legs and the sharpest-looking talons you've ever seen on an avian creature, had flown out of nowhere and pounced on the snake, piercing it's long, sinuous body with those ice-pick claws and burying its long, hooked beak into its neck and snapping it's spinal column-killing it instantly. The serpentine demon who craved your butt only moments ago gave a few last twitches and died. The owl-which you now identify as a Burrowing Owl-spins its head around and gazes at you. Those intense, large yellow eyes are unnerving and you find yourself raising your ever-faithful camera with trembling hands and snapping a few pictures of this beautiful creature who just saved your miserable rear end-literally.
Just a few moments later, as if it can tell that it'll be the show-and-tell of an 86-year-old man obsessed with its fellow species, it abruptly takes off with it's prey, getting a running start with those long, feather-free legs and then seeming to leap into the sky as it spreads a pair of massive wings, soaring away into the setting sun like a cowboy from those old Western movies that your friend loves to watch.

Maybe Owls are cool after all.