HE AUDUBON BULLETIN 16 
Owl Photography 
OTE GLEVELAND 
who had visited us so frequently last winter was again spending 
much of his time in the box on the stump near the kitchen door. 
He was a cunning little screech owl and would watch me from the door 
of his house as I walked about, but if I came too close he would hop 
noiselessly back into the box. I was anxious to band him, but the bands 
had not arrived. At last one morning after the bands arrived, Mr. Owl 
was sitting in his doorway, but to my surprise I saw that he was not the 
same one, as he was a very bright rufous, while the first one had been 
gray. He was the brightest colored one I had ever seen and I was 
anxious to get him into my hands for a close view. I brought out the 
ladder, and in placing it brought the end within about two feet of him, 
but he appeared not in the least disturbed. He was so tame that he sat 
there while I mounted the ladder and tried (unsuccessfully, as I after- 
wards found) to get three snapshots of him. A conversation that I 
carried on with a neighbor, fifty feet away, affected him not at all, 
except that he turned his head to follow me with his eyes whenever I 
moved. 
I use a landing net on a long pole to catch birds in nesting boxes; 
and, as he seemed about to spend the day in his doorway, I tried three 
times to place the net over him, but each time he flew into a nearby tree, 
returning later to take up the same old stand. Later in the day I heard 
the bluejays screaming and knew that they had forced him to take shel- 
ter in his box. So I quickly mounted the ladder, but his previous 
experience had made him wary and he flew, just as I placed the net over 
the opening, catching one foot 1n the netting. In his struggles he freed 
himself, and I did’t see him again until the evening after Thanksgiving, 
when I happened to see him fly away from the box. 
In trapping birds for banding I sometimes get a house-sparrow which 
I dispose of. I began putting these sparrows and an occasional mouse in 
the owl’s box and almost every morning I went up the ladder with my 
net, placed the net over the door, and rapped on the box. Several 
times I found the bait gone, but no owl. 
The day before Christmas I went up the ladder as usual, but no owl 
flew into the waiting net when I rapped on the box, and the door, which 
slides up, was frozen fast. So I reached over the top to see if I could 
feel the two sparrows which I had placed there the day before. Yes, I 
could feel feathers, and I was just about to remove my hand when it 
seemed to me those feathers moved. I am sure the heart of no hunter 
()* day last October I was much elated to find that ‘‘The Owl”’ 
