XXXIV 



SCREECH OWL; LITTLE HORNED OWL 

 373. Megascops asio (Linn.) 



This, the smallest of the eared Owls, is about the 

 length of the Kobin and, having long ear feathers, 

 looks like the Great Horned Owl in miniature. The 

 Screech Owl is the best known of the Owl family, as it 

 frequently nests in hollow limbs near our homes, in 

 abandoned Flicker holes, under the eaves of the barn or 

 other out-houses or, perchance, in a box prepared for 

 the Purple Martins. 



The range of the Screech Owl is over the entire 

 United States and southern Canada, It presents many 

 color phases, from an ashen gray to a beautiful chest- 

 nut brown, the feathers marked with wavy bars. (Fig. 

 46.) 



There is a wrong impression prevailing that Owls 

 do not see during the day. Just try to sneak up on one 

 as it perches in some darkened shadowy nook and ob- 

 serve how quietly it disappears to a safe distance. 



The Screech Owl has the usual absurdly dignified- 

 looking facial expression seen in most members of its 

 family. Its melancholic, tremulo notes on moonlight 

 nights are familiar sounds to many a city dweller, as 

 most city parks harbor one or more pairs of these birds. 



This sociable little night prowler often makes its 

 home in the same place for several seasons. In a big 

 leaning black walnut tree on a golf course over which I 

 play, a Screech Owl once lived for many years. Every 

 day, as I passed the tree, I could see the little fel- 

 low thirty feet from the ground, sitting in his front door, 

 blinking away at the sunlight as he watched the day 

 and the golfers go by. If I approached, he faded away 

 like a dissolving motion picture scene. 



The Screech Owl has the peculiar habit of cutting 

 off the heads of mice and eating those choice morsels first. 

 The bird's upper and lower mandibles have free motion 



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