188 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
Santa Fe County, in April, 1921, a pair was nesting (Jensen).] A nest with fresh 
eggs was found April 6, 1913, at 7,200 feet near Beaver Lake; another nest with fresh 
eggs found May 1 near the first was probably the second set of this pair of birds. 
A third nest with incubated eggs was found April 29 not far distant indicating that 
two pairs were inhabiting these cliffs. [Adults and young were seen, June 28, 1920, 
35 miles southwest of Chloride at 7,000 feet (Ligon).] In addition to these records 
of actual breeding, the species has been seen during the summer under conditions 
that made it probable that it had nested not far distant; between Tres Piedras and 
Taos July 8, 1904; several between Roswell and the Capitan Mountains June 8-19, 
1899 (Bailey); one at about 4,800 feet in the lower foothills of the Big Hatchet Moun¬ 
tains July, 1908 (Goldman); while it was reported as not rare in summer near Las 
Vegas (Mitchell). 
In the fall migration it is fairly common, the southward movement beginning in 
early August, and at this period it was noted as high as 9,400 feet in the Costilla 
River Valley, August 23, 1904 (Bailey). Near Koehler Junction, it was quite com¬ 
mon, especially July 31, September 1, 4, and October 2 (Kalmbach). One was seen 
September 30,1904, at Lake Burford (Bailey). Of those that winter in New Mexico, 
it was seen January 5, 1901, at Albuquerque (Birtwell), [noted on the Carlsbad Bird 
Reserve, December, 1916 (Willett); taken in Socorro County, January 24, 1917 
(Kellogg); several seen in the Carlsbad region, January 5 to 7, 1919, and three seen 
near Fort Sumner, January 11, 1919 (Ligon).] On the return in the spring one was 
taken March 22, 1892, on the southern boundary 60 miles west of El Paso (Mearns). 
—W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —Usually in crevices and holes in perpendicular cliffs. Eggs: 2 to 5, 
generally creamy white, thickly blotched, mottled, and clouded with reddish-brown. 
Food. —Birds, mammals, reptiles, and the larger insects. The stomach of a 
young one still in the nest contained the remains of a meadowlark and of rock and 
ground squirrels. “Good and bad habits about balanced; takes game birds and also 
pernicious rodents” (Henderson). 
General Habits. —Several of the spirited clay-colored Prairie 
Falcons were seen ftying about the alfalfa fields at Carlsbad in Septem¬ 
ber, apparently looking for game among the flocks of waders that 
followed the irrigation of the fields. When the waders were quietly 
feeding, the appearance of this dark, short-necked hunter would send a 
big flock of the silvery birds into the sky, or if he dashed in among 
them, would put them to disorderly flight. 
A Ring-necked Pheasant that was once attacked by one was so 
terrified that, at each swoop of the Falcon, it would flatten itself against 
the ground. 
At Lake Burford Doctor Wetmore watched a pair nesting on an 
inaccessible ledge high up on the sandstone cliffs bordering the canyon 
below the lake, which frequently came across to hunt along the lake 
shore. They harried the Yellow-headed Blackbirds so mercilessly that 
they “set up an outcry whenever a bird of any size appeared on the 
skyline. Near their nest the Falcons frequently perched in dead trees as 
well as on the rock ledges. The nest was easily located by watching and 
following the adults, but was on a rock shelf where it could not be reached 
without ropes” (1920a, p. 398). 
