14-1 



THE COXDOR 



Vol,. X 



in a fairly thick grove of box elders, 

 vicinity soon revealed the nest. It was 



NESTLING OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN SCRp;ECH 

 IN A WIND 



a fledgling with the old bird a few 

 daj'S later, I am pretty sure that this 

 was the nest. 



The third nest I was able to visit 

 several times and my notes, accord- 

 ingly, are more complete. This nest, 

 apparently an old flicker's hole, was 

 in a small cottonwood stump, about 

 fifteen feet up; the stump being ver}^ 

 rotten, and leaning directly over a 

 mountain stream, it was not a very 

 safe place for a family of young birds. 



I found this nest on June 4, 1907, 

 by rapping on the stump; the owl res- 

 ponded by peeking out of the hole 

 and prompth' dropping back again. 

 As I suspected young birds to be in 

 the nest, I returned on June 10, with 

 my camera. I enlarged the opening 

 a little and put my hand in. The 

 lady of the house was in possession; 



A search thru several hollow trees in the 

 situated in a hollow limb of a live box 

 elder, about twenty-five feet from 

 the ground, and contained one 

 young bird almost ready to leave 

 the nest. The cavity, which was 

 in the end of the limb, was about 

 five inches across at the top and 

 about two feet deep; it sloped at 

 an angle of about thirty degrees, for 

 a short distance, then went off in 

 a horizontal direction; it was back 

 here that I found the bird. While 

 I was at the nest, the old bird, pre- 

 sumably the female, lit a few feet 

 from me, but did not show much 

 anxiety, except to snap her bill 

 occasionally. 



The second nest was found on 

 May 28, 1907. I flushed the adult 

 from the hollow, but, on account of 

 the size of the tree, I could not get 

 into it. The cavity was in the 

 center of a huge cotton-wood stump 

 about three feet in diameter, and 

 fifteen feet high; it was over a foot 

 wide at the top and nearly ten feet 

 deep, so it was almost impossible 

 to get into it. However, as I saw 



vounCt rockv mountain screech owt 



