156 
THE CONDOR 
I VOL. V 
The Rocky Mountain Screech Owl in Larimer County, Colorado 
BY W. h. BrRNETT 
T his owl (A/egascops a. maxwelliaf) is quite a common resident in suitable 
places throughout the greater part of the county, extending into the moun- 
tains to about 7000 feet, but it reaches the height of its abundance along the 
foothills. To visit the haunts of this bird one has to follow the wooded streams, 
and as they lie off the usual course of travel, M. a. niaxtvellicp is unfamiliar to all 
but naturalists. Altlio usually nocturnal, they are frequently met with in 
the day time. You often see one napping on a limb close to a tree trunk, and 
when disturbed it seems to suffer little inconvenience by the glare of the day. 
These creatures make their homes in hollow cotton-woods, box-elders and wil- 
lows, and you can always locate them by the pellets which lie around. From 
the nature of the material and from what stomachs I have examined I thifik their 
principal food is mice, which are abundant. I am satisfied they do not ne.st in 
the same cavities they use for a winter home, as I have for several years made the 
rounds in winter and marked the inhabited trees, but not in a single instance have 
I found eggs in the marked trees. They sometimes appropriate the abandoned 
nests of the American magpies. Their eggs are not easily taken as the following 
account of a collecting trip will show. 
In company wdth Mr. F. M. Dille we left Fort Collins one morning about 
eight o’clock, followed the Cache Fa Poudre river on the south side as far as Bell- 
vue and returned on the north side, arriving home about three o’clock. After eat- 
ing a lunch we went down the river (south) returning at eight o’clock p. m. with 
only two sets for the day’s work, after covering about sixteen miles of timber. 
One was a set of four, badly incubated, the other of five eggs, nearly fresh, and as 
handsome a set as I ever saw. They were white and clear, while the four were 
very much nest stained. 
What pleasant memories those collecting trips leave. As I am writing this, 
altho several years have passed, I can again see the nesting cavity, in which we 
took our set of four, in a cotton-wood tree which was leaning over a shallow pool, 
where minnows flashed tneir silver sides in the sunlight. Our set of five was 
found in a willow stub. I can still hear Dille making his great speech about how 
destructive M . a. maxwellitz were to poultry. The cause of this burst of eloquence 
was the sudden appearance of a ranchman exclaiming, “What are you doing 
there?’’ just as I had made the important discovery that the nest contained five 
eggs. Almost invariably the nesting cavities are on the under side of a limb and 
we made several difficult climbs with the aid of a lariat rope. 
That these owls sometimes become bold when driven by hunger, the following 
episode will show. There had been a week or two of severe weather, with about 
ten inches of snow on the ground. We had a pet canary hanging at the dining 
room window. One evening we were startled by a crash against the pane. There 
seemed to be a whitish object without, and on investigating we found the cause of 
our alarm to be a screech owl, attempting to reach the canary, for a meal. He was 
very persistent and repeated his attempt at frequent intervals until the light was 
removed from the room. 
