Читать книгу Jack Miner and the Birds, and Some Things I Know about Nature онлайн

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The screech-owl is just a miniature horned owl, both in looks and habits. But I have never had my wits tried more with any bird than I have with the Great Horned Owl. On one occasion one of these winged brutes came and apparently just got his toes pinched in a trap; and night after night he sprung the traps and took a hen pheasant. This went on until he had taken twelve. Then I put on fur coat and made a bed of robes out in the “hide” which I always kept ready in the enclosure; and there I lay in that bright moonlit, stinging-cold, zero night. At last I saw an owl hovering over the ground, and fortunately for me he got fooled; he came to examine the decoys near me and while his attention was rivetted on them I raised up and fired, and he never knew what hit him. When I went to the house it was three a.m. I usually catch twelve to fifteen of these owls every winter.

Remember, when he comes and gets a bird he will eat what he wants of it, and come back the following night for a new one.

But how these cannibals locate other birds for miles and miles across the country is a mystery. Yet if we go down in the field and kill a beef on a hot summer’s day, the turkey buzzards will be here in less than one-half hour. Where did these vultures come from? You perhaps have not seen one for a month. How did they know you were killing a beef? This question may be just as much in place as: How do the hawks and owls find their prey?