330 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
In a prairie dog town in the southwest foothills of the Capitan 
Mountains, Mr. Gaut wrote of a family which he watched being fed. 
“The five young ones would stay close about a certain hole in the 
town, probably the one where they were reared. When approached 
they would scramble down the hole and stay there until the parent 
birds arrived and informed them that all danger was over. At the 
time when I approached, the old birds flew off a short distance and 
tried to attract my attention with a curious little dancing performance. 
A short while after their scare had calmed down, one of the adults 
captured a grasshopper and carried it to its young, whereupon the 
little ones scrambled about, each trying to prevent the others from 
getting ahead of it. These same tactics were repeated when a large 
black beetle was captured to be fed to them” (MS). 
ARIZONA SPOTTED OWL: Strix occident&lis lucida (Nelson) 
Description. — Length: 16.5-18 inches. Head very large , without ear-tufts; 
facial disc gray, extensive; upperparts dark brown, head and neck coarsely spotted 
with white , the white on hind-neck in form of transverse bars; tail long, with five 
white bands; wing quills with white bars; throat and lower median underparts pure 
white, chest with distinct bars, rest of underparts barred and spotted with brown. 
Range.— Colorado and the mountains of south-central New Mexico, eastern 
Arizona, and western Texas south to Michoacan and Guanajuato. 
State Records. —When Woodhouse visited New Mexico in 1851, he reported 
the Spotted Owl as common in the State. Since then ornithologists have met the 
species only rarely. [Ligon has found it most commonly from 6,500 to 9,000 feet 
through the south-central part, in the Sacramento and San Mateo Mountains, the 
Black Range and Mogollon Mountains, though also as far north as the Sangre de 
Cristo Range east of Taos. He has found nesting sites, nests, and eggs (1926, pp. 
421-429).) It is so strictly non-migratory that it undoubtedly breeds wherever it 
occurs. During the fall of 1913, several specimens were collected; in the San Mateo 
Mountains October 1 at 7,000 feet; near Chloride October 22 at 6,500 feet; Taylor 
Creek Gorge in the Black Range, about 30 miles northwest of Chloride, Novem¬ 
ber 13, 1913. It was found near Eagle Peak, in the Tularosa Mountains, Decem¬ 
ber 5, 1913, at 8,000 feet; five were collected northwest of Reserve, 7,500-8,500 feet in 
the region of Center Fire, Bill Night Gap, and Spur Lake, and others heard, in 
1915 (Ligon). A specimen was taken August 20, 1883, near Willis at 8,000 feet 
(Henshaw). [On June 21, 1924, one w’as heard in a canyon on the Taos-Cimarron 
Highway, about 8 miles southeast of Taos (Ligon). It was seen in the winter of 
1922-23 at Santa Fe; and a pair May 15, 1927, in the Jemez Mountains (Jensen). 
Two were noted in December, 1898, at 9,500 feet near Las Vegas (Mitchell). An 
adult male was taken, November 10, 1918, in a cottonwood grove on the Gila River, 
20 miles west of Silver City (Kellogg).] One was seen October 8, 1903, at 8,100 
feet in the Manzano Mountains (Gaut), and a pair at El Rito (Henderson); one was 
heard at about 7,000 feet near the head of Powderhorn Canyon on the Mimbres the 
middle of May, 1906 (Bailey); one at about 8,000 feet in the Sacramento Mountains 
neai Cloudcroft, September, 1902 (Hollister); two were heard on several consecutive 
nights the middle of October, 1906, at about 8,000 feet on Willow Creek in the Mogol¬ 
lon Mountains; and on August 20, 1901, one was heard at 8,000 feet near the head 
