SAW-WHET OWL 229 



seldom heard at night, except for a few weeks during the mating 

 period. 



Courtship. — -We common mortals, who cannot see in the dark, know 

 very little about the courtship performances of the owls, except what 

 we can learn from listening to their springtime voices. All owls are 

 more active and noisy at the approach of the breeding season than 

 at other times, and the saw-whet owl is particularly so. Major 

 Bendire (1892) quotes Dr. William L. Ralph as saying: "Just before 

 and during the mating season these little Owls are quite lively; their 

 peculiar whistle can be heard in almost any suitable wood, and one 

 may by imitating it often decoy them within reach of the hand. 

 Upon one occasion, when my assistant was imitating one, it alighted 

 on the fur cap of a friend that stood near him." W. Leon Dawson 

 (1923) writes: 



During the brief courting season, when alone the notes are heard, the male is 

 a most devoted serenader; and his song consists of breathless repetitions of a 

 single syllable, whoop or kwook, vibrant and penetrating, but neither untender 

 nor unpleasing. In the ardor of midnight under a full moon, this suitor whoops 

 it up at the rate of about three whoops in two seconds, and this pace he main- 

 tains with the unfailing regularity of a clock. But to prevent his lady love from 

 going to sleep, he changes the key occasionally. In quality this Nyctaline note 

 is not unlike the more delicate utterance of the Pygmy Owl. * * * There 

 can be no confusion, however, as between the incessant cadences of the Saw-whet 

 and the xylophone "song" of Glaucidium. 



Nesting. — Many years ago Herbert K. Job showed me a nest in an 

 old flicker hole in a dead pine stub in which a saw-whet owl had laid 

 three sets of eggs in a single season. As the owl had popped her 

 head out each time he rapped the stub, I made a point of rapping 

 every likely looking stub I passed thereafter. But it was not until 

 March 19, 1911, that I succeeded in finding another nest of this owl 

 in a very similar situation. I was crossing an extensive clearing, near 

 Taunton, Mass., where a large tract of heavy white-pine timber had 

 been cut off, when I saw a large stub of a dead white pine that the 

 wood choppers had left as worthless; and there was an old flicker's 

 hole in it about 18 feet from the ground. I rapped the stub, as usual, 

 and was delighted to see a small, round head appear at the opening; 

 thinking that we were too early for eggs and not wishing to disturb 

 her too much, we came away and left her. I visited the nest again 

 on April 1 and 8, to show the owl to a number of my ornithological 

 friends, and on each occasion the owl appeared at the opening after 

 rapping the tree or starting to climb it; she would not leave then until 

 I almost touched her ; she then perched on a small tree within ten feet 

 of a party of 29 people, while I was at the nest. On April 11, when 

 I came to collect the eggs, she sat even more closely; rapping was of 

 no avail until my companion, Chester S. Day, climbed up and looked 

 into the hole; she finally popped her head out within a few inches of 



