THE OOLOQIST 



135 



THE NESTING OF A GREAT 

 HORNED OWL 



To one who is thrilled at finding 

 such common birds' nests as the 

 chewink or red-winged blackbird, the 

 finding of a great horned owl's nest 

 is indeed of mighty importance. The 

 ne^t I am to write about was of the 

 first of this species of owl I ever had 

 the pleasure to examine or make 

 notes on. 



A neighbor of mine found the nest- 

 ing site by accident, while looking 

 for "good coon trees." This was on 

 January 19th, 1923; and at that time 

 there were but two eggs in the nest 

 cavity. He reported the find and the 

 location to me. The Sunday follow- 

 ing or on January 21, my brother, 

 Clyde, and I went out and found the 

 nesting tree easily. 



A large sycamore stands about two 

 hundred feet to the north of the Kaw 

 Valley Electric Line in the Little 

 Kaw valley, west of Mahon station in 

 Levenworth County. This tree leans 

 sharply towards the river and was 

 likely bent into its present position 

 by floods during its earlier years. 

 Thirty feet from the ground — al- 

 though much farther from the tree's 

 base, occasioned by the angle at 

 which the tree leaned — is a large 

 cavity, twenty inches across and 

 three feet deep. At one time the top 

 of the tree must have broken off 

 and, while the inner wood decayed, 

 the outer wood grew up around it. 



On this first Sunday, Clyde was 

 almost up to the nest before the old 

 owl flew off. I had my camera set 

 awaiting the owl's exit, and was re- 

 warded by a fairly good picture. The 

 male soon came sliding through the 

 woods from up the draw, and joined 

 its mate in protestinations in the 

 form of beak clickings and deep 

 "Whooo-Hoooos" from trees around 



about. Three large white eggs were 

 in the nest this day. 



We waited twenty-eight days to go 

 out to the nest again. That was on 

 February 17th. One young owlet was 

 hatched, one egg pipped and the 

 other egg in no way changed exter- 

 nally. The young chick v.-as some- 

 what larger than a newly hatchel 

 chicken, and covered by patche:; of 

 yellowish w'hite down. The day was 

 a cold and ' raw one, ro we wera at 

 the ne:"t no longer than we needed 

 to be. 



On the 25th of February the third 

 trip vras made to the ne".t. All three 

 owls were hatched and grown some- 

 what larger than the one we saw on 

 the 17th. Several parts of rabbits 

 were in the nest cavity, also a fresh- 

 ly killed Bobwhite. I leaned over in- 

 to the nest hole to examine the young 

 more thoroughly, and while in this 

 position I heard my brother call out, 

 but not in time to prevent the parent 

 owl from giving me a sharp blow 

 over my right kidney as she flew by. 

 I also felt a slight burning and 

 found, when I reached the ground, 

 that the owl's claws had found my 

 flesh through my underclothes, my 

 blue shirt, a painter's canvas jacket, 

 my old coat and that portion of my 

 overalls that reached up that far. I 

 shiver to think what the result would 

 have been had I been Adam or even 

 Tarzan of the Apes. 



The parent owls finally left the part 

 of the valley where their nest was 

 located, before we were through pho- 

 tographing and making notes, only to 

 run into a flock of crows. In the 

 space of a half hour, fully five hun- 

 dred crows were swirling about the 

 trees wihere the owls had t^ken re- 

 fuge. An enormous flock of these 

 black marauders, flying high over 

 head, swung once around on hearing 

 the clamor from below, but did not 



