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" 0E:P 33 1914 
Volume XVI 
September-October, 
-%onal 
Number 5 
THE NESTING OF THE SPOTTED OWL 
By DONALD R. DICKEY 
WITH SEVEN PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR 
W E HAD BEEN prospecting for a rumored condor ledge high in the coast 
mountains of Ventura County, California, and had come at night to a 
little valley where horse feed grew close to a clear, cold spring. It 
was an ideal camp site, and we left it with real regret as the early sun first 
began to creep down the western wall of the canyon on the memorable morning 
of May 15, 1913. In the bottoms it was still cold and damp, but as we climbed 
we slowly left behind the chill of the dark, sweet-smelling bays and the shade 
of the alder fringe along the creek, and came out into the open and warmth 
of the pines. 
The saddle of the range which we were crossing was, roughly speaking, 
five thousand feet above the sea, so there was much to interest an eye and ear 
trained in the lowlands : here a fleshy crimson snow-plant, there a blue-fronted 
jay, so much the superior of our crestless, nest-robbing sneak of the lower live- 
oak valleys; or, perhaps, a slender-billed nuthatch “yanking” among the scat- 
tered oaks, or a friendly Bailey chickadee. 
Once again the trail led into the shadow. This time at the foot of a high, 
overhanging cliff of red conglomerate, weathered out into fantastic castel- 
lated shapes. The pack horse was leading like a lamb for once in his aggravat- 
ing career, so with leg flung across the saddle horn I had nothing to do but 
swing with the stride of old “Powhatan”, and let my eyes wander eagerly over 
cliff face and tree. 
Suddenly, in the black mouth of a pot-hole high on the rock wall, I caught 
a glimpse of a large round head. Almost instantly the bird shrank back into 
the dark interior, but the glimpse had satisfied me that I had seen my first 
Spotted Owl {Strix occidentalis occidentalis) ! Man may voluntarily have come 
to the ground with greater speed than mine in that instant, but I doubt it. The 
