LONG-EARED OWL 155 



been occupied by Cooper's hawks in previous years. In the first nest 

 the hatching process was nearly completed on May 10, 1921. On 

 May 24, 1925, all but one of the young had left the nest of that year. 

 The following year, on May 26, the young of that year had all left 

 the nest and were so well hidden that I could not find them, but 

 the old owls were both very solicitous. I had looked at this nest 

 on April 21, when the owl was undoubtedly incubating, but, as I 

 saw no signs on the nest and could not drive the owl off by pounding 

 the tree, I did not climb to it. I have doubtless passed by other 

 occupied nests without knowing it, as this owl is not easily driven 

 from its nest and there are seldom any feathers showing about the 

 nest until after the young have hatched. I have never succeeded 

 in locating any of these four pairs of owls since the above dates. 



On June 2, 1905, while hunting along Bear Creek, near Crane Lake, 

 Saskatchewan, we saw an old ferruginous roughleg's nest, about 14 

 feet up in solitary poplar among a lot of low brush near the creek 

 (pi. 31). When I climbed up to it and looked over the edge, I was 

 surprised to see a long-eared owl staring me in the face and less than 

 2 feet away; its feathers were all bristled up, its wings half spread, and 

 its eyes blinking; it made a formidable appearance, hissing and 

 snapping its beak. It was evidently as much surprised as I, but it 

 settled down again on its five heavily incubated eggs as soon as I with- 

 drew. The nest was a large one, 48 by 23 inches over all, and the inner 

 cavity measured 10 by 9 inches; it was made of the usual large sticks 

 and rubbish, and was lined with bunches of grass, pieces of dry cow 

 dung, and a few feathers of the owl. 



While I was hunting around Victorville, Calif., on the edge of the 

 Mojave Desert, with Dr. Louis B. Bishop and Walcott Thompson, 

 they showed me a small nesting colony of long-eared owls, where they 

 had found at least four pairs of these owls with eggs or young two years 

 before. The locality was an extensive tract of cottonwoods and 

 willows along the Mojave River. The place was overrun with pack 

 rats, which evidently furnished a convenient food supply for the owls. 

 We flushed two of the owls, but not from nests. There were a lot of 

 old nests in the woods, perhaps built by night herons or crows. One 

 that I climbed to was evidently a feeding nest, as it had the remains 

 of a pack rat in it. Another, which I could not climb to without irons, 

 had considerable down on it and may have been the owls' nest. 



In this connection Henry W. Henshaw (1875) says: 



It seems to be a habit with this species in the West to congregate together and 

 form colonies, often made up of a large number of individuals. I have, however, 

 noticed this to be most frequently the case in regions where timber was scarce, 

 and doubtless this lack of places suited to the necessities of their nature, which 

 requires them to pass the hours of daylight in some dark, secluded retreat, furnishes 

 the reason for this apparent sociability. In Grass Valley, Utah, I thus found at 

 least a dozen individuals together in a small grove of cedars, and nearly every tree 



