When evening tips her palette of exquisitely blended colors over the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, the Elf Owls leave their daylight retreats and hunt beneath the stars. Flitting eratically thru the dusk they seem more moth than bird.
They are seldom found outside sahuaro cactus country and few of these candelabra plants are without Woodpecker holes wherein the Elves reside.
So attached are they to these homes that only lack of food in winter months drives them from the vicinity for a few weeks. The nests are almost invariably located in old Woodpecker holes of the sahuaro period.
