Homed and Hoot Owls 



or less bordered with rusty. Immature birds have entire 

 plumage regularly barred with rusty, gray, and white. (See 

 frontispiece.) 



Range — Eastern North America. 



Season — Permanent resident. 



Why this little owl should wear such freaky plumage, rusty 

 red one time, mottled gray and black another, without reference 

 to age, sex, or season, is one of the bird mysteries awaiting solu- 

 tion. Frequently birds of the same brood will be wearing differ- 

 ent feathers. In the transition from one phase to another, many 

 variations of color and markings appear; but however clothed, 

 we may certainly know the little screech owl by its prominent 

 ear tufts or horns, taken in connection with its small size. Like 

 the little saw-whet owl, which, however, wears no horns, people 

 who live in cities are most familiar with it on women's hats, worn 

 entire or cut up in sections. 



A weird, melancholy, whistled tremulo from under our very 

 windows startles us, as the uncanny voices of all owls do, however 

 familiar we may be with the little screecher. Are any super- 

 stitions more absurd than those associated with these harmless 

 birds ? Because it makes its home so near ours, often in some 

 crevice of them, in fact, in the hollow of a tree in the orchard, 

 or around the barn lofts, this is probably the most familiar owl to 

 the majority of Canadians and Americans. It keeps closely con- 

 cealed by day, often in a dense evergreen or in its favorite hollow ; 

 and except for the persecutions of the blue jay, that takes a mis- 

 chievous delight in routing it from its nap and driving it abroad 

 for all the saucy birds in the orchard to pursue and peck at, we 

 should never know of its presence. In the early spring especially 

 it lifts up its voice — too doleful a love song to be effective, one 

 would think ; yet the screecher's mate apparently considers it 

 entrancing, since she remains mated for life. In the southern and 

 central portions of its range, nesting begins in March ; in the New 

 England and northern parts some time between the middle of 

 April and the first of May. A natural cavity in a hollow tree, or an 

 abandoned woodpecker's hole are favorite nooks, and boxes nailed 

 up under the dark eaves of outbuildings on the farm or in dense 

 evergreen trees where light cannot strike the owl's sensitive eyes, 

 have been promptly appropriated in many instances. 



It is generally known that all owls go through some strange 



344 



