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BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
Arizona Spotted, the Mexican Screech Owl, the Saw-whet and the 
Pygmy all being seen on the Indian School campus (MS). 
One of the Long-eared Owls found by Mr. Ligon on February 8, 
1915, at about 7,800 feet, was in a juniper on a brushy south slope, where 
there was little snow to obscure the view of its small prey. When 
disturbed it flew into a pinyon tree (MS). A nest that he found was 
in a thick Douglas fir sapling under the rim of a high mesa. 
The Long-ear is a great poser. When encountered in a tree in the 
woods it will sometimes draw itself up very tall and thin, with ears 
erected, like the pictures on protective attitudes, one wing curiously 
drawn half way across its breast helping to narrow its body and make 
it look more like the tree trunk. If disturbed on the nest, the brooding 
bird will flatten itself down so that it can not be seen from below; 
and when a cornered young one becomes too greatly tried by an enthusi¬ 
astic photographer it will lean down, fluffing out its feathers, spreading 
its wings wide at its sides, and fixing its big yellow eyes upon the enemy 
with suggestive snappings of the bill and other threatening noises. 
But though it rouses itself to go through its theatrical performances in 
the daytime, and the parent Long-ears show great alertness and 
anxiety at the nest when visited by day, a young one well met in the 
forest, after a little bravado will close its big yellow eyes and drop off 
to sleep while you watch below. 
There is the charm of novelty and mystery attaching to these night 
watchmen of the forest, and no opportunity should be missed to add 
to our meager knowledge of their life histories. 
Additional Literature.—Bailey, F. M., Bird-Lore, XV, 285-290, 1913 
(nesting habits).— Brewster, William, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., Harvard College 
LXVI, 367-370, 1925. 
SHORT-EARED OWL: Asio flammeus (Pontoppidan) 
Description. — Length: 13.8-16.7 inches, wing 11.8-13, tail 5.8-6.1, bill .6, 
tarsus about 1.7. Ear opening 2 inches or more across. Ear-tufts short and incon¬ 
spicuous. Adults: General color yellowish brown to buffy white (with great individual 
variation) heavily striped with darker above, lightly below; tail and wings banded, 
under primary coverts with terminal half black , making a conspicuous wrist spot; facial 
disc white , ring around eye black; iris bright yellow, bill and claws blackish. Young 
m juvenal plumage: Upperparts sooty brown with broad buffy feather tips; under- 
parts plain dull buffy; face plain blackish with light border; iris pale straw-yellow. 
Range. Nearly cosmopolitan. In North America breeds irregularly and locally 
fiom northern Alaska, northern Mackenzie, and Greenland south to Massachusetts, 
southern Kansas, Colorado, and California; winters from California, Wyoming, and 
Massachusetts south to Lousiana, Cuba, and Guatemala. Found in South America 
Europe, and Asia. 
State Records— A single specimen of the Short-eared Owl was taken in May 
1892, at the Alamo Huaco Ranch, in Grant County (Mearns); one at Tortugas 
Mountains near Mesilla, March 20, 1903 (Ford); and one at the State College, 
