Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS

THE ROLLERS AND THEIR ALLIES

THE OWLS

The Barn Owls

(Subfamily Strigina).—This subfamily includes, so far as known, but one living genus, Strix, embracing the well-known Barn Owls. Among the characters by which this subfamily is distinguished it may be mentioned that the sternum or breast-bone is without notches behind and has its broad keel firmly joined to the furcula; the inner toe is as long as the middle toe, the latter with the inner edge of the claw serrated. The wing-quills also furnish a number of distinguishing marks, the first being longer than the third, and all without sinuation or indentation on the inner webs.

The Barn Owls, of which some twenty-five forms are known, enjoy a wide distribution, having representatives in nearly all parts of the world with the exception of the colder regions. They are medium-sized birds, none of them exceeding twenty-one inches in length, without ear-tufts, but with a very conspicuous, entirely continuous facial ruff, which gives them the so-called”monkey-face,”so often ascribed to them.

The wings are very long, extending considerably beyond the tip of the relatively short tail, the legs are densely clothed with soft, short feathers, and the claws are extremely long and sharp. The beak is rather long, straight at the base and strongly decurved at the tip, while the eyes are small and black.

There are some differences of opinion as to the treatment of these Owls, some arguing that there is but a single, or at most only three or four, forms that are entitled to rank as species, and these of very wide distribution; but, as will be shown later, the differences in size and coloration are so great as to seemingly preclude the possibility of there being so few recognizable forms.

Thus the American Barn Owl (Strix pratincola) is from fifteen to twenty-one inches in length, ochraceous yellow above, this overlaid, more or less continuously, by a grayish superficial hue, finely mottled and speckled with dusky and white, while the lower parts vary in every degree from silky white to bright tawny, dotted or speckled with black. It is pretty generally distributed over the warmer parts of the United States and Mexico, becoming the most abundant Owl in California; but as it is strictly nocturnal in its habits its presence is often unnoticed even in localities where it is fairly common. It has a special predilection for church towers, open belfries, or little-frequented buildings when these are available, but in the western part of the country it more frequently selects cavities in the sides of gullies and rocky cliffs and occasionally makes use of hollow stubs and trees.

The nest proper, if it may be so called, consists of a few feathers or more frequently of such rubbish as collects in the vicinity. The eggs generally number from four to seven, but as many as ten or eleven have been reported in a single nest.”The period of incubation is from three to three and a half weeks, and as a bird will occasionally begin to set soon after the first egg is deposited and as eggs are laid on alternate days, the last one may not hatch until two weeks after the first.”Both parents assist in duties of incubation.

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