delport FIELD TRIPS AT FALLEN LEAF LAKE 171 



help things along somewhat, a couple of jays had come up from 

 below and joined in the chorus and we listened to a very unusual 

 and unmusical bird concert while it lasted. Birds of a feather 

 surely flock together, for what modest little songster could live 

 within hearing distance of these bold ribalds. The concert sub- 

 sided somewhat before we left, followed by a continuous chatter, 

 and we decided that if gossip was a propensity among birds, the 

 gift had surely fallen to Clark's crows in particular. 



We had now reached the summit of the ridge with Fallen Leaf 

 stretched below like a sheet of lapus-lazuli. Tahoe farther on 

 folded in by gray-blue mountains, completed a vista almost too 

 beautiful and full of magic to be real. Turning away from the 

 scene, we entered a little meadow which ended on the shores of 

 the first lake of the Angora group. These lakes, three in number, 

 nestle together at the foot of Angora peak, a bold, castellated 

 member of the ridge that overlooks Glen Alpine and a vast country 

 beyond. Some fine examples of hemlock and juniper adorn the 

 sides of this peak, and patched here and there with snow, it 

 presents a typical Sierran picture. 



The long, slurred note of a pewee started us on another quest, 

 but we stopped before we located it, having sighted a nicker, 

 whose rich shades of spotted brown and red looked like a dash 

 of Persian brocade adrift in the wind. Farther on, and nearer 

 the second lake, we found a Sierra creeper. Quick as a flash, his 

 tail planted firmly against the bark, woodpecker-fashion, he 

 started his spiral ascent up the bole of a fir tree. His behavior 

 appears somewhat automatic and one might easily compare him 

 to a tin toy wound up, somehow attached to the tree and left to 

 follow the course until it unwound itself. Unlike the nuthatch, 

 this bird does not crawl down, but instead flies from the top to 

 the bottom of the tree, crawls up again and repeats the process, 

 meanwhile pecking away at the bark for food which consists 

 mainly of insects. 



We had left the three Angoras and had started on the homeward 

 trail when glancing upward we spotted twelve white pelicans 

 flying over Cathedral Peak, — a rare find to be sure. Imagine 

 these heavy birds grecefully carrying their weight at an elevation 

 of over ten thousand feet, while we poor mortals puff and pant at 

 much lower elevations. The pelicans, we learned, were probably 



