62 ] The Delightful Hobby of Bird Watching 



ence in a neighborhood. Most owls are woodland birds, though 

 some make their homes in steeples, towers, barns, and other out- 

 buildings; some owls prefer marshes and plains. 



Many people have mistaken ideas about owls. One of these 

 notions is that owls cannot see in the daytime. It is true that 

 their sight is keenest at night, when they do their hunting; but 

 they can use their big staring orbs from sunrise to dark if they 

 wish. These eyes are placed in their sockets in an odd manner, 

 being fixed in such a way that the bird cannot look from one 

 place to another by merely rolling its eyeballs. In order to see to 

 the side, it must turn its head in that direction. As a result, its 

 efforts to keep an object in view may make the owl seem to be 

 "unscrewing" its head. 



Owls vary greatly in size according to species. Whereas the 

 screech owl is no more than ten inches long, the great horned owl 

 may reach a maximum of twenty-three inches. Both of these have 

 conspicuous ear tufts. The great horned owl seeks wild, heavily 

 forested regions. The screech owl frequently lives near dwellings, 

 in shade trees of village streets or suburban lots. On occasion it 

 will accept the hospitality of a bird-box home. Its plumage is 

 rather odd: its color gray or reddish offers no clue as to sex, age, 

 or season. Some owls simply have reddish-brown feathers while 

 others have grayish-brown ones. 



HAWKS MORE FRIENDS THAN FOES 



You can perhaps best recognize the large and varied hawk 

 family by actions and sounds. Hawks are solitary birds except 

 during the migration season. Ordinarily you may see one of them 

 soaring in wide circles high overhead, scanning the ground below 

 for a possible victim. When it spots a quarry it swoops down, 

 strikes the prey with its feet and tears it to pieces with its bill. 

 Its loud, startling cry seems very suitable to its fierce nature. 



Because of the many similarities among different species, it is 

 not always simple to tell them apart. Sometimes you can identify 

 the red-tailed hawk by the feature which gives it its name, even 

 when it is flying quite high above you. Its tail is frequently slanted 

 in flight, and especially on a sunny day the red tones on the upper 



