The Screech Owls 
Recognition Marks. —As in preceding—lighter and grayer. 
Range of 0 . a. gilmani .—Southwestern California, southern Arizona, and 
southwestern New Mexico (presumably also northern Sonora). 
Occurrence in California. —Resident in the valley of the lower Colorado 
River and probably also in the Imperial Valley. 
Authorities. — H. Brown (Megascops asio cineraceus ), Condor, vol. vi., 1904, 
p. 46 (Colo. Valley, on Calif, side); Grinnell, Univ. Calif. Pub. Zool., vol. xii., 1914, 
p. 128 (Colo. Valley); Gilman, Condor, vol. xi., 1909, p. 147 (Ariz.; desc. nests; habits, 
etc.); Swarth, Condor, vol. xviii., 1916, p. 163 (crit., desc., meas.). 
TO ONE whose early studies have been 
conducted in the forests and deciduous groves of 
the East it is a disappointment to learn that the 
birds of California will not respond to the Screech 
Owl cry. Why, go out in any grove from Iowa 
to Massachusetts, at any time of year, at any 
hour of daylight, save the siesta interval from 
10 a. m. to 2 p. m., secrete yourself in a thicket 
and simulate the mournful, rolling call of the 
little Screech Owl, and you will at once be con¬ 
scious of an apprehensive hush in the neighboring 
trees and bushes. Then follows a murmur of 
inquiry; Chickadees, Titmice, Nuthatches, Warb¬ 
lers, Vireos, and Jays set out to discover the 
whereabouts of this arch-enemy who has been 
indiscreet enough to proclaim his presence during 
the hours ot his helplessness. It a veritable Owl 
is found, as not infrequently happens, every 
bird's bill is against him, and there is none so 
poor to do him reverence—by daylight. This 
is not alone because he appears stupid and 
sleepy, or because he regards his tormentors with 
the fixed gravity of a round-eyed gaze, varied 
only by “that forlorn, almost despairing wink" 
peculiar to it, but because they have an ancient 
and well-grounded grudge against this bird of 
silent wing and cruel claw. All but the Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata)— 
he is a villain himself, and he leads the persecution of Owls from a sheer 
love of mischief. Whenever a Blue Jay’s voice is lifted high, and there 
is an undercurrent of bird-babble beneath it, it is time for the bird-man 
to slip rapidly forward from tree to tree and investigate. 
But there is none of that here, nor indeed anywhere in the West, so far 
as I have been able to discover. Why, we do not exactly know; but it may 
Taken in 
Monterey 
County 
Photo by 
the Author 
1105 
