Chapin : Nests of Owls and Hawks 5 



19 I saw one of the parents near the nest, and I hope that its 

 only offspring safely reached maturity. 



A fourth pair of barred owls was located by Mr. Wort at 

 Green Ridge, and we found "some eggshells of the previous year 

 under a tree; still we failed to find their present abode, for the 

 old nest is now occupied by a colony of bees. At several other 

 localities, notably Willow Brook, I am certain there must be 

 barred owls breeding, but proof of these suppositions must wait 

 until next year. 



During the breeding season at least, barred owls certainly eat 

 numbers of birds, as might be expected from the abundance of 

 migrants at that season ; but it is true also that small mammals, 

 swallowed with the hair on, do not leave such conspicuous traces 

 as the feathers of birds. Thus it is possible that in the food of the 

 young owls, small mammals may constitute a higher percentage 

 than one would suppose. The variety of animals eaten by barred 

 owls is well illustrated by the following list of carcases found in 

 the nest at Great Kills by Mr. Howard Cleaves on April 25, 

 1907: three meadow mice, one rat, a starling, two garter-snakes, 

 a frog, and an eel. We notice with satisfaction that they have 

 taken kindly to the starling. 



Crows are inveterate enemies of barred owls, for some inscru- 

 table reason, and will gather in numbers to attack them whenever 

 possible, so that the presence of an owl may often be known by 

 the disturbance among the crows. 



2. The Red-Shouldered Hawk, Buteo lineatus. — Just as 

 every pretentious patch of woodland in our vicinity may be said 

 to have its resident pair of barred owls, so also it has its red- 

 shouldered hawks, the work of one by night supplementing that of 

 the other by day. This year we succeeded in finding four nests out 

 of ten or twelve red-shouldered hawks, which, according to careful 

 estimate, must still breed on Staten Island. 



It seemed therefore very natural that the first hawks' nest 

 should be found near the first barred owls' nest, at Great Kills. 

 April 6, 1907, I noticed a nest in the crotch of a large pin oak, 

 about fifty feet up. On the ground beneath lay a few fresh pine 



