1913 BIRDS OF THE FRESNO DISTRICT 



51 



Among a clump of willows standing in three or four feet of water I fouml 

 a pair of Horned Owls nesting on April 12, 1902. They were occupying what 

 may have been an old nest of a Night Heron, a thin frail structure, placed four- 

 teen feet above the water. It measured six inches in width on the inside and 

 nine in length, with the cavity only two inches in depth; but it seemed ample 

 for the great bird that occupied it, and for her three eggs. The latter were 

 nearly ready to hatch. This was near New Hope, and on April 6, 1906, I ex- 

 amined two more nests of the same species within a mile of the first one dis- 

 covered. One of these nests was thirty-five feet up, in a partly-dead willow in 

 a field, and had three fuzzy, white, young birds of various sizes. The other nest 

 was eighteen feet up in a willow in a thick clump that, as in the first instance 

 cited, v.^is growing in water. In this nest was one tiny owlet, apparently just 

 hatched, one a little larger, and a third that was fully twice as large as his young- 

 est brother or sister. There was one gopher and parts of two cottontails in this 

 nest. 



In examining the three nests referred to I was in apparent danger of being 

 attacked by the angry parents. They remained near at hand, frequently jump^ 

 ing from branch to branch, and hooting continually. 



March 29, 1909. while looking at a hawk's nest fully seventy feet up in a 

 big sycamore that stands in the creek bed above Academy, I detected a big owl 

 perched near the nest. I felt certain that his mate was on duty, but much as J 

 needed a set of eggs of the Pacific Horned Owl for my collection, I passed on 

 up the canyon leaving the owls undisturbed. It was not the first time, either, 

 that I had looked up at that nest; but the forty or more feet of smooth bark to 

 be scaled before a single branch could be reached was an obstacle too great for 

 me to attempt to overcome. 



Burrowing Owl. Speotyto cunicularia hypogaea (Bonaparte). 



Ten years ago, throughout most of the region about Fresno, could be heard 

 all through the April evenings the characteristic "kook-ka--wah" of the Burrow- 

 ing Owl floating across the summer- fallow fields just as darkness hid the last 

 night-hawk from view. During the long moonlight nights that fol- 

 lowed later in the summer, the indescribable call that this little owl utters 

 as it hovers over some object was none the less an indication of the abundance 

 of these birds. This is the call that our Mockingbird has learned to imitate so 

 perfectly, but for which m.an's alphabet does not provide letters by which an idea 

 of its nature may be conveyed from one person to another. 



"Billy owl" is the name by which this, our smallest owl, is known to every- 

 one, and the name seems to fit him admirably. As he sits calmly on a fence post. 

 eying the chance passer-by out of half closed eyes he has a comical, yet sleepy 

 expression that always attracts attention. The "forty-niner" and the eastern 

 tourist alike regard the "billy owl" as a warm friend rather than as just a harm 

 less bird. 



Civilization, cultivation, and squirrel extermination have now crowded these 

 little owls farther and farther out to the edges of the Fresno districL, to the west 

 side plains and a few other unsettled areas. When these agencies have left no 

 room for them anywhere in the valley, then Fresno County will have lost not 

 only a most interesting bird but a very useful one as well, for the species lives 



