The Screech Owls 



surplusage of food during the night 

 which they dole out at intervals 

 through the day. Although they 

 grow very fast it is not until fifteen 

 days after hatching, according to 

 Otto Emerson, who studied a family 

 closely at Haywards,* that they get 

 their eyes fully open. 



The Owls remain in a family 

 group for some weeks after the 

 young are able to leave the nest, 

 and one occasionally comes across 

 them standing as motionless as stat- 

 ues on some horizontal limb at a 

 low level in the woods. When the 

 young are beginning to make in- 

 quiries for themselves, or when 

 family cares are quite done, the old 

 birds, who, since the courting days 

 have maintained a discreet silence, 

 become tuneful — or noisy, according 

 to the receptivity of the listener. 



It is altogether probable that 

 these Owls remain mated for life. 

 Anyhow, the birds are discovered 

 in pairs during the winter. Once in 

 the "dead" of winter (how foolish 

 that easternism sounds in Cali- 

 fornia!), January 21, 191 1, I was 

 exploring the bottoms of the San 

 Gabriel River in company with Mr. 

 A. B. Howell, when we came to a Cottonwood stub about 15 feet high 

 which showed a ragged hole where some oologist had once dug out a 

 Flicker. Arrived at the top, I split the stump down gently and disclosed 

 a Screech Owl crouching on the bottom. A fragment fell upon him, but 

 he made no moan. Then I rent off the smaller half of the broken tree, 

 capturing the bird without difficulty, and exposing as I did so another 

 cavity below the one in which the Owl sat, and separated from it only 

 by the thinnest septum of rotten wood. The floor of the upper cavity 

 was covered to a depth of three inches with a loose mass of animal debris, 

 decomposed casts, feathers, the tests of ants, etc. ; and when the trunk 



1 Bendire, op. cit. p. 362. 

 IIO8 



Photo by A. W. Anthony 

 CAUGHT RED-HANDED 



THE BIRD IS A MACFARLANE SCREECH OWL PHOTOGRAPHED IN THE 

 BLUE MOUNTAINS OF OREGON 



