THE OOLOGIST 



77 



came an old American Barn Owl. I 

 quickly decided that the first men- 

 tioned owl must have been one of the 

 species instead of a Pacific Horned 

 Owl, so on up I went and before I got 

 to the hole out came another American 

 Barn Owl. 



This began to puzzle me, why there 

 should be three owls, but by now I 

 was convinced that the first owl must 

 have been one of this species. 



On looking into the next hole, I 

 found three well incubated eggs, which 

 I decided to leave on account of being 

 such a small set. 



I had almost forgotten the hole 

 further up, when I happened to think 

 of it I almost decided it would be a 

 waste of time to go on up, but some- 

 thing seemed to tell me to go on up, 

 so I went only three feet farther but 

 a little difficult on account of this ar- 

 rangement of the limbs at this point. 

 On looking into the crotch, or rather 

 the pocket which was caused by a 

 limb falling out years ago which was 

 really in the crotch, I was very much 

 surprised to see four large round 

 white eggs which could be nothing but 

 Pacific Horned Owl eggs, but this was 

 not sufficient identification so after a 

 wait of about an hour the old bird re- 

 turned to a nearby tree affording me 

 a good view of her and thereby mak- 

 ing identification certain. After watch- 

 ing her for a while I decided to try to 

 get a little closer but old Mrs. Owl had 

 her eye on me, and flew away, her 

 mate which I had not seen before 

 joined her and they flew across the 

 valley. 



After all this surprise I decided to 

 look around for more owls and soon 

 located two more nests of the Ameri- 

 can Barn Owl which were both in 

 holes in the willow trees and from the 

 accumulation of bones, etc., they have 

 used these same holes for years. I 

 also noticed that the mouth of the 



holes are all facing the north east. 



These are the first American Barn 

 Owls I have found nesting in trees 

 since 1907 during that season and prev- 

 ious to that I found several pairs nest- 

 ing in holes in oak trees in Ventura 

 Co., Calif. But after that they seemed 

 to prefer holes in dirt banks where I 

 have seen as many as a dozen pairs 

 in less than a quarter of a mile of 

 bank. 



I might mention a few other nests 

 I found while looking for more nests 

 of the Pacific Horned Owl, viz: 



Two nests of the Mourning Dove, 

 one contained two badly incubated 

 eggs and the other nest contained two 

 fresh eggs, also two nests of the Calif. 

 Shrike, one contained six eggs and the 

 other three. I have never found these 

 birds nesting before the first of April. 

 But my field has never covered any 

 part of Kern before and probably that 

 accounts for it. 



I would be glad to get in touch with 

 any one who has done field work in 

 Northern Kern County, as I believe 

 this section will afford some valuable 

 things along the bird line. 



Very truly yours, 

 Orland E. Beekman, 

 Wasco, Kern Co., 



Calif. 



Catching An Eagle By Hand 



On March 10, 1917, a friend of mine, 

 a Mr. Truman Blancett, whose home 

 is near the edge of town had quite a 

 unique experience with an Eagle, 

 which was quite interesting, that is 

 for him. About 4:30 o'clock in the 

 afternoon as he went out to feed his 

 chickens, he all of a sudden saw a dark 

 shadow and with a noise like a "sky 

 rocket" down came an Eagle into the 

 chicken yard, and when he spread out 

 his talons to pick up his chicken he 

 caught one toe in the meshes of the 

 wire that encircled the chicken yard. 



