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A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of The Audubon Societies 



Vol. XXII September— October, 1920 No. 5 



The Screech Owl 



By H. E. TUTTLE, New Haven, Conn. 

 ■\\'ith Photographs by the Author 



CURIOUSLY enough, my first glimpse of the Screech Owl was not 

 vouchsafed at dusk among the shadows of an upland orchard, but under 

 the glaring sun of a winter's noon in the city of Chicago. He sat on 

 the edge of the cornice above the third-story windows of the house opposite, 

 while we pressed our noses to my grandfather's window-panes and watched 

 him with excited interest during several hours of the day. He perched, shut- 

 eyed and motionless, his plumage a rusty red against a background of sooty 

 bricks, while we wondered how he got a living and why he had selected the 

 city for his home. He, or his counterpart, occupied the same niche for two 

 winters, and it is my present belief that the English Sparrows which crowded 

 our vines at evening were "by a mousing owl hawked at and killed." I shed 

 no tears at the thought, and for as many of their deaths as may be laid at his 

 door I commend him. 



While as a species I can regard its predatory forays with favor, I have 

 met with individuals toward whom circumstantial evidence of indifferent 

 morals pointed its damning finger. Baby-kilhng, for instance, is no longer in 

 popular favor, and yet I came upon a Screech Owl one day, carr}'ing w^hat 

 seemed to be a small kitten. I followed his line of flight, and as the burden 

 proved too great a handicap for him in his effort to place a safe distance 

 between us, he dropped it, but fingered near as if reluctant to yield it to my 

 inspection. To my astonishment I discovered that it was an infant Owl, quite 

 downy and quite dead. Xow the elder Owl may not have been related to his 

 younger victim, or again he may not have killed it, but in view of the facts 

 I returned a Scotch verdict against him. 



Aly next acquaintance with the Screech Owl began one spring day, when, 

 on looking up toward the top of a hollow basswood, I saw an Owl sitting upon 

 the lower lip of an orifice. Securely sheltered there he blinked away the days, 

 while at night he hunted through the darkness of the shadows and made our 

 woods musical with low-voiced hooting. 



