336 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
western New Mexico from a thicket of cedar and oak, “made several 
short flights from place to place” as he pursued them, “but invariably 
sought shelter near together in a thick tree top” (MS). 
Another pair were seen in northeastern New-Mcxico in winter by 
Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton. As he says, “After sunset, on the trail 
home, I put up a pair of Short-eared Owls. They were resting on the 
prairie close together. They circled about each other in the air, 
uttering once or twice a short screech or scream” (MS). In Alaska, 
Mr. Alfred M. Bailey says, “This wide-ranging species was noted 
hovering over the tundra near Nome on June 21. Two birds worked 
back and forth over the ground as they watched for their prey. Their 
summer range extends far into the Arctic; the Eskimos collected 
several” (1926, p. 124). 
In South America, Doctor Wetmore found them “fairly common in 
marshy areas on the pampas, and elsewhere ... in tracts of low 
greasewoods or other small bushes” (1926b, p. 201). 
This interesting bird is noted for what Mr. Dawes Du Bois calls 
“A Nuptial Song-flight of the Short-eared Owl.” On a calm evening 
on the Great Plains, when sound carried to a long distance, from his 
Montana cabin the last day of May he first heard this “tooting song 
. . . tool-toot-toot-toot-toot, etc., repeated fifteen to twenty times, at the 
rate of four toots per second, in a low-pitched monotone.” On the 
fifth of June, before dark, the tooting was heard again. Going out of 
his cabin to listen, Mr. Dubois relates, “upon gazing upward, I dis¬ 
covered the Owl directly overhead, and for a time was able to watch 
him, with the field-glass, in the fading light. He was flying at a great 
elevation; so great in fact that it was difficult to see him at all without 
the aid of the field-glass. For the most part his flight was with slow, 
silent flapping wings, although he sometimes soared. His course led 
in easy curves which kept him in the same general locality. His song, 
on this occasion, was made up of 16 to 18 toots. Now and then he made 
a short slanting dive which terminated with an upward swoop. The 
dive was accompanied by a peculiar fluttering noise, a sound of which 
I had been conscious for some time before I associated it with the Owl. 
It was such a sound as might be produced by a fluttering small bird 
imprisoned in a box; or by the flutter of a small flag in a very strong 
wind. Remembering that sound travels more slowly than light, I 
believed that the fluttering ceased before the upward swoop began. 
The seventh of June brought the coveted opportunity to watch the tooter 
in broad daylight. The sun shone upon him and enabled me to solve 
the mystery of the fluttering flag. When the Owl began the short 
dive he brought his wings together beneath him, stretching them back 
posteriorly and striking them rapidly together with short clapping strokes. 
The dive ended simultaneously with the clapping, when the bird spread 
