FLAMMULATED SCREECH OWL 293 



Plumages. — Mr. van Rossem (1936) says: "Two newly-hatched 

 young collected on June 9, 1931, are thickly covered with snowy 

 white down, with, in life, the bills and feet flesh color. The irides, 

 both of adults and young, were very dark, nearly blackish, brown — 

 very different from the yellow irides of the common and spotted 

 screech owls." 



Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (1905) describe the "first full, but 

 imperfect plumage" as follows: "Wings and tail as in the adult (last 

 pale band of latter apparently terminal). Whole head and body with 

 numerous, about equal, transverse bands of dusky and grayish white; 

 the two colors about equal, but on lower parts both are much wider 

 and more distinct than above the white gradually increasing posteriorly. 

 Breast and outer webs of scapulars with a rusty tinge, the latter 

 scarcely variegated. Eyebrow white, feathers bordered with dusky; 

 eye-circle and ear-coverts bright rusty-rufous ; lores much tinged with 

 the same. No facial circle." 



In the adult plumage there is considerable individual variation 

 between the two extremes of the gray and red phases, of which Mr. 

 Ridgway (1914) writes: 



The individual variation in this species is so great that it is somewhat difficult 

 to frame a description covering them all. The variations involve not only the 

 general color (extreme examples of the grayish phase being without a trace of 

 cinnamomeous or ochraceous color, except the partly buffy outer webs of exterior 

 scapulars, while extremes of the rufescent phase have cinnamon-brown and 

 cinnamon-rufous the predominant colors) , but also the size of the darker markings 

 on the under parts, which may consist of delicate pencilings or heavy spots and 

 bars. So far as I am able to see, these variations are utterly without geographic 

 significance, except that the extreme rufous phase is, at present, known only from 

 Guatemala, where, however, specimens occur which I am unable to distinguish 

 from northern examples. 



Food. — The flammulated screech owl is apparently largely, if not 

 wholly, insectivorous, though it may occasionally capture a small 

 mammal or bird. In the few stomachs that have been examined 

 have been found various beetles, moths, grasshoppers, crickets, cater- 

 pillars, ants, other insects, spiders, and scorpions. 



Behavior. — Edouard C. Jacot (1931) says of the habits of this owl 

 in the Huachuca Mountains of Arizona: 



The pine trees seem to furnish the favorite perches from which the Flammulated 

 Screech Owls call, and the Arizona white oak is a close second. They were also 

 heard calling from sycamore, Emory oak, madrona and thick oak brush, having 

 flown into the latter on several occasions when disturbed and continued to call. 

 The owl, in calling from a pine tree, is usually to be found about two-thirds the 

 height of the tree, perched on a live limb near the trunk. In a white oak, the 

 calling bird may be perched on the bulge of the trunk or near the trunk on a live 

 limb, and at times well out near the twigs, but I have seen it only once on the dead 

 stub of a branch. Usually, the Flammulated perches near the trunk of the tree 



