One of the most abused birds in this state is the Owl. Here you see the Killicott Screech Owl, the common screech owl of Oregon. It is about the size of a half-grown chicken. It is the one we often hear hooting at night, either in the country or about town where there is a big clump of trees. It lives largely upon mice and small rodents, of which it consumes an enormous quantity. Nests are built in hollow trees with no other lining than the soft, decayed wood, and in these they lay their four round whitish eggs. The male usually his in some crevice nearby or sits outside the nest while the mother is incubating the eggs. So great is the appetite of the fledglings that the mother and father have to spend the greater part of the night gathering and storing up enough food to feed the babies the next day. The Screech Owl seldom does any harm, but few of the larger owls are very harmful in their habits, as they never neglect a chicken yard whenever there is any chance for them to pillage.
The black-capped yellow bird sitting the the thistle is the willow goldfinch, then olive green bird to the right is the Green-backed goldfinch. They are abundant summer residents of the Pacific coast states, the willow goldfinch as far north as British Columbia, and the green-backed to the Columbia river. The green-backed goldfinch is more or less common in suitable localities in the interior valleys while the willow goldfinch is common from sea level to the mountains. Both are found along roadsides picking at thistle heads and dandelion and come freely into dooryards to feed and build their nests in the shrubbery. They consume great quantities of weed seeds and insects and should be carefully protected.
This is not really a hawk, but is often called one. Some people call it the “Bull Bat”. It can be distinguished easily because of its long, slender wings, and the two white spots which you see represented. It is a relative of the Whip-poor-will, and belongs to that family. It lives entirely upon insects and has none of the Hawk’s habits. You can see these birds on a summer evening, almost at dusk, flying about, high in the air, and then descending with a great swoop. The nose dive and the tail spin are evolutions which some of our aviators may have evolved from watching the habits of this bird. They make a great booming sound when flying towards you, especially if you happen stumble upon their nest or even approach it. Some of us associate with nightfall in our childhood two sounds from the sky which seemed mysterious, and one of them sometimes, perhaps, a little dreadful. One was the steadily repeated “Paent” and the other the occasional sudden booming or whirring sound which the Nighthawk, out of sight, would send down to our ears. We may, from this boyish experience, understand how the Indians became superstitious respecting the latter sound and thought it “was the Shad Spirit warming the shoals of shad about to ascend the rivers to spawn, of their impending fate.”
Perhaps no description is needed for this common frequenter of our open meadows and hillsides. Mr. Lord says “such a rarely beautiful, endlessly varied, and wonderfully incessant singer! No bird anywhere has a fuller or richer note; none such variety of songs, except perhaps the mocking bird; none like this bird makes varied and joyous melody in summer and in winter, too; in rain, in snow, in cold.” One author in the West has written and described 35 different songs for the Western Meadow Lark; while the Eastern, some say, has thirteen, others, just one. It might be interesting to known that although called a Lark, it is in reality not a Lark at all, but belongs to the Oriole family.
These birds are the only members of their class in the United States. They are a little larger than the ordinary sparrow, and are colored much as the sparrow is. They can easily be recognized by the darker patch on the throat, the sort of mustache which runs back on the cheeks, a bright line over the eye, and the fact that the feathers may stick straight up so as to make a little horn over each eye. This shows on some of the birds in the back part of the picture. As you ride along in the country, these birds will fly out and run along in front of the machine or carriage, running a short distance, flying a little way, and then coming back and running along again. Some people in this country call them “Road Runners”. This, however, is not the true Road Runner found in the South, but it is a very interesting bird. We never find them in trees or bushes, but always on the ground. They are typical seed-eaters.