CALIFORNIA PYGMY OWL 427 



Steller jays. In these cases the little owls were so well hidden that I 

 would never have found them if I had not investigated the reason for 

 the crying mobs of jays. Several times I have heard of the jays 

 killing the owls just as Taylor and Shaw have recorded. 



Dawson, Allan Brooks, Munro, and Taverner all bear witness to 

 the efficiency of the imitation of the pygmy's cry in calling all sorts 

 of small birds about the imitator. P. A. Taverner (1926) gives a 

 particularly interesting story of such a gathering. He says: 



Pause anywhere in its haunts, and whistle an imitation of its call — a half whistle, 

 half spoken 'cook-cook,' followed by hollow, woodeny, staccato whistles suc- 

 ceeding each other slowly at first, but with a gradually accelerated tempo, and 

 every small bird within hearing will come to investigate. The Nuthatches, 

 hanging head downward, waving their heads like pendulums, and pointing their 

 straight, upturned bills first to one side and then to the other, quanking as they 

 do so. The Chickadees, 'dee-deeing,' their beady eyes twinkling with curiosity. 

 Buzzing, squeaking, excited Hummingbirds will hum angrily around. Sparrows, 

 Wrens, Vireos, Warblers, Jays, and many others, hurry with anxious cheeps to 

 the spot, from the deep tangles of the brush, the middle thicket of the branches 

 overhead, or even the topmost tip of the giant yellow pines, and press in excited 

 review about the alarum. * * * If another Pygmy Owl hears the call, it 

 comes immediately to challenge the intruder, sometimes two come together, find 

 in each other the opponent they were seeking, and join in furious if elf -like combat. 



In addition to the mobs of jays, pygmies have other killing enemies 

 to fear. Mr. Michael's notes tell of one that attacked a weasel, 

 apparently more through the love of a fight than otherwise. Un- 

 fortunately for the daring little pygmy, the weasel managed to turn 

 and eventually got a deadly hold, so that the owl was killed during 

 the death struggle. I have noticed that the pygmies and the Douglas 

 squirrels seem to be habitual enemies. I do not know that I have 

 ever seen the owl catch or kill one of these squirrels (comparable to 

 the red squirrels of our eastern States), but I have seen many attempts 

 to do so. And I have sometimes found a Douglas squirrel violently 

 "sassing" the owl when the owl seemed to be merely attending to its 

 own business. Laurence M. Huey called my attention to the fact 

 that both Mr. Richardson (1906) and Mr. Daggett (1913) recorded 

 spotted owls, taken in the mountains near Los Angeles, that had each 

 eaten a pygmy owl as examination of their stomachs showed. 



Winter.- — While the California subspecies generally spends the 

 winter in the same habitat as in summer, severe winter conditions 

 may affect the abundance of the owls' prey and thereby cause the 

 owls to seek temporarily a lower elevation where food might be more 

 abundant. Mr. Michael tells of at least one pygmy owl that lived 

 near the barns of Yosemite in winter for the sake of the mice. In 

 winter the pygmies roost at night in old woodpecker holes, at least in 

 the Yosemite Valley. Mr. and Mrs. Michael say that on "April 22, 

 1929, there came a cold gray morning with intermittent snow flurries 

 during the afternoon. In spite of the weather we went over to the 



