166 
THE WILSON BULLETIN— September, 1922 
Iii a little while the Screech Owl flew to a dead tamarack, 
the upper half of which was broken off and gone. This trunk is 
filled with holes and cavities made by Flickers and Red-headed 
Woodpeckers year after year, and into one of these the Owl dis- 
appeared. Probably one or more of these cavities form the 
quarters of him and his mate — if he has one. 
This tract of trees is evidently the year-around home for at 
least one pair of Screech Owls, for nearly every summer the 
young can be seen there. Watching the rows of half grown 
youngsters perched on some branch in this tract in the spring 
months has furnished me considerable amusement. They are 
so serious looking and apparently motionless except when they 
turn their heads completely around to stare at one from behind. 
In this ludicrous position one might imagine that Mother Na- 
ture had put their heads on backward. The parent Owls are 
usually near their young when they are out on these “airings.” 
Occasionally, when one goes into the woods at dusk in the late 
spring evenings he is reminded of the presence of a Screech 
Owl brood by the old ones swooping down at him and uttering 
peculiar noises as they glide by his head. On these occasions 
the Screech Owl displays an amount of aggressiveness I have 
not found in his nature at other times. On many nights, in 
the summer or fall. Screech Owls have come and perched on the 
roof of our house or sat in the eave troughs, where they give 
their calls, as if they were somewhere deep in the woods. 
The occurrence of the Barred Owl, in the immediate vicinity 
of Winthrop, is rather rare, but this is doubtless due to the 
lack of any dense timber within several miles. I usually make 
one record of this species each year, but not oftener. 
My first record of the Barn Owl is April 13, 1922. That 
morning, when I went into tlie silo to throw down the supply 
of ensilage for the day, I found the Barn Owl sitting on one 
of the timbers which support the roof, about twenty feet above 
me. Although considerably alarmed at my noisy work below, 
the Owl did not fly out, but perhaps this was because it could 
not find the place where it had entered. The bird remained 
there all day; a pair of pigeons which had their nest inside 
were afraid to come into the silo. According to Anderson’s 
“Birds of Iowa” (1907), the Barn Owl “very rarely appears 
north of the middle line of the state.” 
March-April, 1922. 
