-oOo-

BAND-TAILED PIGEON

Other common names: Wild Pigeon.

Museum Specimens - Longmire (2700).

The fact that this bird will not follow the way of its eastern cousin, the passenger pigeon and that it has been saved from extinction, is due to the timely protection given it by the Government some fifteen years ago. At that time this bird had become scarce due to over-shooting, but now it shows a steady increase and should soon be back in normal numbers. It is gratifying to the National Park Service to realize that it has done its part in protecting this bird. Here in Mount Rainier National Park, under absolute protection, it has shown a steady increase.

We have quite a large breeding flock at the Longmire Meadows and have birds recorded through the breeding season on all sides of the mountain. However, the great gathering is in the fall in the Sunset Park area. By the last week in August, when the berries of the low-bush huckleberry (Vaccinium celiciosum) are dead ripe, these birds come by the hundreds to gorge on the fruit. They soon become doped or "drunk" by the fermentation of the berry juice; become sleepy and spend hours dozing in a stupified condition. Much of this area has been burned, the naked trees still standing. These bare trees make ideal roosting sites for the flocking birds. Pigeons, however, are not the only birds that are fond of this over-ripe berry. Robins, thrushes, flickers and even the mountain bluebirds over-indulge. When the huckleberry crop is gone the pigeons turn to the fruit of the mountain ash, subsisting on this crop while it lasts. It is then about time to migrate.

Band-tailed pigeons are slow producers. They lay a single white egg, and even with two sets a season the best production is but two young.

Nearer sea level about Puget Sound I have found pigeons sitting on their eggs the first week in April and later a fresh set as late as June 15, proving without a doubt that they produce two "broods" a year. Their favorite nesting sites are the draws or gulches that extend along the high banks of Puget Sound. Small firs, alders and even bushes are chosen, where the platform of loose, dead twigs is built to hold time single white egg. I soon learned to tell the contents of the nest without climbing the tree. When disturbed, the brooding bird will stand up on the nest - if in the center it is an egg, but if near the edge you can be sure there is a young squab in the nest.

These birds seem to have few natural enemies in the park. Their flight seems to be too fast and direct for the three Accipiter hawks, but we know from observation that the sagacious coyote gets his fill of these juicy birds during the berry season when their wits are befuddled.

-oOo-

KENNICOTT'S SCREECH OWL

Museum Specimens - Nisqually Entrance (2000).

The altitude of our park is a little too high for this little owl, but it is found about the Nisqually Entrance and we have a record at Spray Park by Taylor and Shaw on August 29, 1919.

This little screecher is probably the most commonly known of all our owls. It is a general favorite with the suburbanites who are perhaps more familiar with its curious, wavering call notes in the spring than with the sight of the bird itself. In our fir woods it is difficult to estimate just how common this owl really is, as the thick covering hides the bird well in the daytime.

Screech owls are the smallest of our "horned" owls and this alone should distinguish it from our other small owls. It is grayish-brown above, grayish with blackish stripes below, with a short tail. It has a funny way sometimes of sitting squatted on a limb, looking as broad as it is long, then reversing its posture to appear long and thin. This change in perching attitude sometimes makes it difficult for the novice to make identification.

Kennicott's Screech Owls nest in a hole in a tree, using no nesting material. They lay two to four pure white, roundish eggs, and if not disturbed they may use the same nesting site year after year.

They have an extremely varied diet; small animals, birds, insects, fish, frogs and angle worms compose their menu. Our land snails, so common in our fir woods, are also taken.

In the fall of the year when our heavy rains begin, our hard highways are sometimes covered in places with crawling angle worms. This means a feast for our little owl and he may be seen with his throat and mouth crammed full, with the ends of the worms wriggling from the sides of his mouth. In the stomach of one bird we found a thin piece of inner tube which was no doubt mistaken for a worm. Just how this would digest if at all, is difficult to tell.

Altogether, the screech owl should be considered a good friend of the farmer, for the rodents and beetles he eats should compensate for the few birds he catches.

-oOo-

DUSKY HORNED OWL

Other common names: Hoot owl.

The horned owl is often called the "tiger" of the bird family. It must indeed be terrifying to some sleeping bird to suddenly awaken and find two large staring eyes beside him! However, he is a "tiger" bird only at night; if discovered in daylight he is set upon by small, teasing birds that make life miserable for him until he retreats. Crows are his enemies and will pester the owl, but at night the owl has his inning when he visits a crow roost.

A three-quarters grown owl was caught in broad daylight on Mazama Ridge. A bunch of small, noisy birds, mostly fly-catchers and Cassin's purple finches were pestering it, and what a noise flycatchers can make! When we approached it was just too much for the owl, and the last we saw of it he was heading down Stevens Canyon. It probably came up from there on its initial journey.

Horned owls do kill birds, although not many, and are fond of poultry, which places them near the top of the predatory list. As an offset to this, they are a great help in rodent control, even to mammals as large as the skunk. Perhaps ten per-cent of the birds killed here have a skunk smell, and their battles must be fierce, for many an owl when skinned shows a mended bone.

These owls are not as common in the park as they might be considering the amount of forest available. We have records from Tahoma Creek, Mazama Ridge, Lake James, Paradise River and Mowich Lake - fairly well scattered areas. They are of great benefit here checking rodents, while their bird diet must be light in proportion.

We need give little description of these birds ad their pictures are so commonly used in advertisements, and every "owl" restaurant and cleaning establishment has a stuffed bird in the window. Our local birds are decidedly darker than those in other parts of the country, and larger than the California birds. Females out-average the males in size.

Dusky horned owls nest in March, but we have very few nesting-records in western Washington. The site chosen is a tree cavity or some old hawk's nest, much enlarged by years of use. Our dense forests give them great protection. They lay two to four eggs, white and roundish in shape, and the fuzzy young take many days to grow up.

-oOo-

COAST PYGMY OWL

Other common names: Gnoma owl.

Museum Specimens - Reflection Lake (4860); Sunset Park (5500).

This interesting little owl is the smallest of our owls in western Washington, being about "sparrow" size. In appearance and habits they differ in many ways from the other owls. The head is decidedly rounded and has no "ears", contrasting with the wide forehead of the screech owl, and the saw-whet.

They are brown above and on top of the head with dull golden spots that are more numerous on the head. The underneath parts are white with long, distinct black stripes. The tail is long in proportion to the body, the bill yellowish. This long tail is put to good use, for after securing a victim almost as large as itself, he throws his weight backward, using the tail as a prop to hold the struggling prey until his sharp claws and beak end the struggle.

Pygmy owls are often seen in daylight, and are much followed and scolded by the juncos and finches. Here in the park the Cassin's purple finch will raise a rumpus but will keep a safe distance from the owl's sharp little claws. We have June records at Nisqually Entrance and Longmire, and fall records at Reflection Lake and Sunset Park. The latter bird was at the top of a tall, dead tree at noontime and could be seen at quite a distance.

The nesting site is a hole in a snag where three or four white eggs are laid. We have no breeding records for Washington, but it undoubtedly breeds.

Pygmy owls are good mousers and beetle catchers.

-oOo-

NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL

Other common names: Wood owl.

Museum Specimens - North Puyallup Bridge (3700).

Our spotted owl is a cousin or western representative of the barred owl of the east, so well-known there but rare and retiring here. They may be more common in the Cascade mountains than the records show. Here in the park we have at least two records - a pair with young at Ohanapecosh (Taylor and Shaw) and an adult bird from the slopes of the North Puyallup Canyon (Kitchin). They are birds of the deep forest and difficult to locate, but will come readily to a squeak if one is fortunate enough to be in their locality.

In size (20 inches) they come between the small owls and the horned owl. Like the saw-whet, they appear to be a bundle of soft feathers. The back, wings and head are a rich brown spotted with white the spots being more numerous and smaller on the head. Beneath, a lighter brown with white spots (bars on the eastern bird) with a light tawny color mixing in with the brown. They have large, light brown eye discs, no ear tufts, and the bill is bright yellow. They are strictly rodent eaters in the park and are thus beneficial.

Spotted owls are gentle and retiring birds. They do not have the boldness of the horned owl, but show curiousity in visiting the camp-fire.

Once we were camping in the mountains of Blewitt Pass and had the pleasure (?) of having a pair of spotted owls circling outside the camp fire circle. Their calls were very weird - what some persons call "maniac-like", whatever that is - but very interesting to us, and we lay in our blankets listening until the embers of our fire had burned low and our visitors had departed.

The few nesting records of this bird show that spotted owls lay three or four white eggs in a niche in the rocky face of some mountain slope.

-oOo-

LONG-EARED OWL

Museum Specimen - Sunset Park (5500).

It is hard to say what two long-eared owls were doing on the west side of the mountain on October 7, 1938. Yet there they were one moonlight night, sitting on a bare, ghost-like tree near the trail at Sunset Park. This substantiates what naturalists say about this bird in Washington - that it is strictly an east-side bird but does show up occasionally west of the Cascades and has even been known to nest there. This is our only park record.

The long-eared owl is strictly beneficial, living mostly on small rodents. Unlike its cousin, the short-eared owl that lives entirely on the ground, this bird prefers the small trees along the stream beds or the draws of the sage-brush country. It nests early in April when trees are bare, in the old homes of crows or magpies, so that the peering bird can be seen over the rim of the nest. Four to six round, white eggs are laid.

This owl is just half the size of the horned owl and can be identified from it and the screech owl by the fact that the ear-tufts arise from above the forehead instead of on the sides, where ears should be. The feathers are soft and silky like those of the spotted and saw-whet owls. It has a tawny appearance with lower back dark and peppered like that of the horned owl; back of head tawny streaked; ear-tufts black with tawny edges; disc tawny; throat white; breast tawny with indistinct stripes; lower underparts sharply checkered with dark lines over a grayish-white background.

-oOo-

SAW-WHET OWL

Other common names: Acadian Owl

Museum Specimens - Paradise Valley (5500), Yakima Park (6400).

This wide-headed little owl, without ears, might be called "resident" in the park. It seems to show up in unexpected places at all times of the year. We have records at Owyhigh Lakes, St. Andrews Park and Paradise, in summer and fall, with winter records at Longmire showing the birds drop down in winter but still stay in the park.

Our best record, however, is the information furnished by Taylor and Shaw in their travels around the park in 1919. On this trip they became acquainted with several families which became so tame that birds would enter their tents at night. Perhaps the odor from the daily collecting of small rodents was the chief attraction, or it might have been the camp fire.

Saw-whet owls are brown on the back and head, the latter sparingly pencilled with white. The back also has broad white markings which, however, are not conspicuous. The underparts are a mixture of light brown and white, feet well feathered end the tail short. A very noticeable feature is the silky appearance or feeling of all the feathers, which are smooth and soft.

These owls are very tame and show little fear of man. In fact, a bird in a bush, when approached by a person with the sun behind him and shining into the owls eyes, can be picked from the branch by hand. The one recorded at Longmire spent his winter days in a wood-shed, seemingly contented.

As in the case of other small owls, their nesting site is a hole in a tree, and from four to six eggs are laid. Their food consists chiefly of mice, and they are strictly nocturnal in their habits.

-oOo-

Descriptions continued...