The Screech Owls 
surplusage of food during the night 
which they dole out at intervals 
through the day. Although they 
grow very fast it is not until fifteen 
days after hatching, according to 
Otto Emerson, who studied a family 
closely at Haywards, 1 that they get 
their eyes fully open. 
The Owls remain in a family 
group for some weeks after the 
young are able to leave the nest, 
and one occasionally comes across 
them standing as motionless as stat¬ 
ues on some horizontal limb at a 
low level in the woods. When the 
young are beginning to make in¬ 
quiries for themselves, or when 
family cares are quite done, the old 
birds, who, since the courting days 
have maintained a discreet silence, 
become tuneful—or noisy, according 
to the receptivity of the listener. 
It is altogether probable that 
these Owls remain mated for life. 
Anyhow, the birds are discovered 
in pairs during the winter. Once in 
the “dead” of winter (how foolish 
that easternism sounds in Cali¬ 
fornia!), January 21, 1911, I was 
exploring the bottoms of the San 
Gabriel River in company with Mr. 
A. B. Howell, when we came to a cottonwood stub about 15 feet high 
which showed a ragged hole where some oologist had once dug out a 
Flicker. Arrived at the top, I split the stump down gently and disclosed 
a Screech Owl crouching on the bottom. A fragment fell upon him, but 
he made no moan. Then I rent off the smaller half of the broken tree, 
capturing the bird without difficulty, and exposing as I did so another 
cavity below the one in which the Owl sat, and separated from it only 
by the thinnest septum of rotten wood. The floor of the upper cavity 
was covered to a depth of three inches with a loose mass of animal debris, 
decomposed casts, feathers, the tests of ants, etc.; and when the trunk 
Photo by A. W. Anthony 
CAUGHT RED-HANDED 
THE BIRD IS A MACFARLANE SCREECH OWL PHOTOGRAPHED IN THE 
BLUE MOUNTAINS OF OREGON 
1 Bendire, op. cit. p. 362. 
II 08 
