Nov. 1906 | 
NESTING OF THE RED-BELLIED HAWK 
147 
wrist, and took my petting quite as a matter of course. I left him (presumably 
him) in the willows by the river calling for his ma, and that she attended to his 
wants was quite evident: for a few weeks later he came up over the hill and made a 
fruitless dash for a squirrel in my corral — frightening, but not harming, my 
chickens — perched on a fence post for a while and then flew away. 
On July 4, 1906, I went up to another nest which contained two young birds. 
They were stuffed about as full as they could hold and were so sleepy they could 
hardly hold their heads up. They would nestle confidingly in my hand with a lit- 
tle plaintive chirp and when put back in the nest the heads would go down and 
eyes close at once. There was part of a large lizard (Gerrhonotus) in the nest and 
their crops were much distended. 
These birds were covered with a smoky yellowish down with slight reddish 
tinge on head and could not have been more than a few days from the shell. This 
was the latest nesting date of my experience and the eggs must have been pro- 
duced about the first week in June. 
This same nest held two fresh eggs on March 6, 1904, giving this pair of birds 
the earliest as well as the latest nesting dates of which I have knowledge. The 
usual nesting date is between the first and the middle of April. One set is the rule 
when undisturbed; but if the first clutch is taken a second will always be laid, the 
birds never going very far from the first nest. The raptorial fondness for a chosen 
range is very great in this species. Taking the eggs seems to trouble them very 
little and only the destruction of both birds seems to be able to accomplish their re- 
moval . 
Since 1898 I have had good opportunity for observing an isolated pair. These 
birds have occupied six different nests — all in Eucalyptus trees — either in groves or 
as shade trees on sides of the road, the extremes being about a mile apart. Every 
year but one they have been levied on for one set of eggs. On one year only was 
a second set taken from them. After the removal of the first clutch the birds have 
gone to the nearest nest — generally to a nest in the same grove and only a few rods 
away and have occupied it for a second, never going from one extreme limit of 
their range to the other. 
One nest was for three years occupied first by a pair of Pacific horned owls. 
I11 1899 I found the hawk on the nest which held two fresh eggs, and two young 
owls were in the branches of the next tree. As that was then the only nest in the 
grove it looked as if there had been a rather hasty eviction. In another nest of 
this pair in 1898 I found three eggs of the hawk and one of the long-eared owl. 
These nests were in a long branch valley separated from my place by a hill 
which rises some 200 feet above my house and then drops rather steeply for 500 
feet or more to the valley below. In many years residence I have very seldom 
seen a red-bellied hawk near my place, tho only about a mile away from their nest- 
ing range. A few miles away, however, where the lower valley runs up almost to 
the head of the Escondido Valley thru a long unwooded ravine the birds are very 
frequently seen, which would seem to show their tendency to limit the canyons and 
low foot hills rather than the higher hills and more open country. 
The eggs of the red-bellied hawk show the same variations in color and mark- 
ings that one finds in other Raptores, running thru the usual gamut of spots, 
splashes and blotches of various shades of reddish brown to very heavily marked 
specimens. Occasionally one will find an egg wholly unmarked. As a rule they 
are very handsome, and in series compare very favorably with the eggs of any of 
the Raptores, few indeed equalling them in beauty. 
The usual nest complement is 3, tho 2 is quite as common. Sets of 4 are rare. 
