Page:Condor16(5).djvu/9

 Seph, 1914 THE NESTING O1 THE SPOTTED OWL 199 Along toward four o'clock the young again grew active according to their daily custom, and as they appeared the adult flew to the nest from the perch where she had slept all day. As she alit she noticed the tackle dangling ust above the nest and immediately circled back to the fir, and began uttering repeatedly a low, indrawn whistle, "Whee e e " with a sharp rising inflection. If this was intended as an alarm note it had no effect on the young. They remained on the edge of the nest and only increased the bobbing interest they took in the rope above their heads. Soon came the deep, "Whoo, whoo, who, who" of the other parent from far up the mountain. He was answered by the supposed female and a moment later he, too, flew down into a tree near the nest. As we rode away they sat in nearby trees, outlined against the piled-up cloud masses of a storm back in the range. On the sixth of June we rode till midafternoon back up the zg-zags of the steep canyon trail among the yel- low bells of the mariposa lily and the cream clusters of flowering yuccas. At last we reached the owl cliff and a ludicrous anticlimax. Pic- ture the three grim cliff scalers with their five hun- dred feet of rope riding up and finding the owls not on the ledge at all, but come to meet them! It was nearly as bad as that, for there, in an insignificant oak across the ravine, sat the two youngsters with their par- ent. All three were well within the reach of any six- year-old boy. They were dis- tant a hundred yards or so from the nest and the hillside rose so steeply on that side that they were almost level with the nest although not over fifteen feet from Fig. 59. YOUNG SPOTTED OWL STILL IN THE DOWN. the ground. That the young could have reached the spot unaided seems in- credible, for although the primaries were well grown out, they were, with that exception, in the complete down, and were still weak. The alternative is that the old birds, continuing their distrust of the dangling rope, had deliberately moved them. Certain it is that they would not normally have left the nest' perhaps for weeks. As we elirobed to the young in the oak the old bird displayed her first sign of vital interest, flying within touch of the intruding heads and peering at us from close perches among the branches. But her passes at us were not fearsome things. She never even snapped her bill. Silently she swooped near,