Notes on the Arizona Spotted Owl
Notes on the Arizona Spotted Owl
Two specimens of Ntrix occidentalis lucida were taken by Mr. E. J. Hands, October 2, 1915, at about 6600 feet altitude in Finery Canyon, west slope of the Chiricahua Mountains, Cochise County, Arizona. They were male and female, and sitting huddled close together on a fir limb. The male, Mr. Hands reports, was a little darker than the female, which is now no. 4441, collection of J. E. Law. These are the first birds of this species noted by Mr. Hands and his brother, John Hands, in the thirty years they have spent in these mountains as miners and rangers.
Compared with six specimens of B. o. occidentalis from southern California, five from Los Angeles County (no. 494, coll. C. H. Richardson; nos. 1392, 1393, 1395, coll. 13. Willett; no. 1477, coll. J. E. Law), and one from Ventura County (no. 830, coll. G. Willett), this female has very nearly the same tone of brown dorsally, though nos. 1392 and 1393 are slightly darker on hind neck, but the light transverse bars of remiges and rectrices are conspicuously broader and whiter. The southern California birds have these bars decidedly buffy. The chest of the Arizonabird has conspicuous broad white bars, giving predominance to the white coloration, in striking contrast to the California birds which have the brown decidedly predominating on the chest. In the Arizona bird the legs are slightly paler than in all the California specimens but no. 1477, and the under side of tall (remiges) again has the white predominating as against the buffy of occidental.
J. E. Law
Hollywood, California, January 25, 1917
