The Great Gray Owl 



reckoned the giant of the owl kind, this bird is really not so "great" as 

 he looks, for he is mostly feathers, and his body, when stripped, neither 

 bulks so large nor weighs so much as that of the Great Horned Owl. His 

 visage, also, lacks the fierce aspect which horns impart, and the bird 

 himself is said to be milder mannered than are the Bubos. The forest 

 areas of the "North Countree" are his proper domain, even up to the very 

 limit of trees; and from thence he occasionally, but not commonly, 

 flutters out upon the open marshes and tundras. Mr. Dale, while sta- 

 tioned upon the Yukon, found the birds "remarkably stupid," and de- 

 clares that he has caught them by hand in the daytime. Certainly their 

 flight is heavy and their motions far from graceful ; but the few specimens 

 which straggle down across the borders of our northern states in winter 

 are never left long to their own devices. The most we know of them 

 is. that, when folded away in a cabinet drawer, they look like great gray 

 babies, over-rash to have left the protection of their northern nursery. 



The claim of this rare northern species to a place in our pages rests 

 upon a solitary example taken at Chico, 1 supported by Newberry's 2 

 earlier assertion that he had proofs of its existence in the Sacramento 

 Valley. But Dr. Cooper once took a specimen near the mouth of the 

 Columbia River in June (1854), an d there are even yet tantalizing rumors 

 of its presence during the breeding season in the forests of Washington. 

 There can be no harm, therefore, in letting the imagination run back to 

 a day, not many milleniums distant, when this great gray ghost haunted 

 our own grim forests of redwood and fir. 



The foregoing essaylet was penned in 19 14, and is retained unchanged 

 in order that it may afford a background for the subjoined account, 

 which, through the distinguished courtesy of its authors, Dr. Joseph 

 Grinnell and Dr. Tracy I. Storer, we are permitted to publish here, in 

 spite of the fact that it is already "in press" as "The Yosemite Report," 

 prepared under the auspices of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, and 

 issuing from the University of California Press. 



"The discovery of the Great Gray Owl in the Yosemite section was 

 one of the notable events in our field experience. And what was most 

 surprising was the fact that the bird was apparently quite at home, and 

 nesting. No previous record of the breeding of this northern species of 

 owl south of Canada is known to us, and its occurrence, even as a winter 

 visitant within the northernmost of the United States, is not frequent. 



"On June 18, 1915, we were camped to the south of Yosemite Valley 

 on the Glacier Point road within two miles south of Ostrander Rocks. A 

 long trap-line beginning at camp led up the gentle slope towards the latter 



1 Belding, Land Birds of the Pacific Coast District, 1890, p. 



2 Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., Vol. VI., pt. IV., p. 77 (1857). 



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