Now Owls Do
Not Love Water Greatly On Its Own Account.
Not to my knowledge
have I caught one drinking or bathing, though on night wanderings
across the mesa they flit up from under the horse's feet along
stream borders.
Their presence near the spring in great numbers
would indicate the presence of the things they feed upon. All
night the rustle and soft hooting keeps on in the neighborhood of
the spring, with seldom small shrieks of mortal agony. It is clear
day before they have all gotten back to their particular hummocks,
and if one follows cautiously, not to frighten them into some
near-by burrow, it is possible to trail them far up the slope.
The crested quail that troop in the Ceriso are the happiest
frequenters of the water trails. There is no furtiveness about
their morning drink. About the time the burrowers and all that
feed upon them are addressing themselves to sleep, great
flocks pour down the trails with that peculiar melting motion of
moving quail, twittering, shoving, and shouldering. They splatter
into the shallows, drink daintily, shake out small showers over
their perfect coats, and melt away again into the scrub, preening
and pranking, with soft contented noises.
After the quail, sparrows and ground-inhabiting birds bathe
with the utmost frankness and a great deal of splutter; and here in
the heart of noon hawks resort, sitting panting, with wings aslant,
and a truce to all hostilities because of the heat. One summer
there came a road-runner up from the lower valley, peeking and
prying, and he had never any patience with the water baths of the
sparrows.
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