fox sparrow: western mountain 1425 



Macgillivray warblers in the vegetation about springs in the mountain 

 meadows. 



Stanley G. Jewett et al. (1953) state that in Washington the race 

 olivacea "occurs commonly in spring in the hawthorn copses of the 

 Palouse country, as well as the wild rose and willow thickets of the 

 Big Bend and lower east Cascades. As the summer advances most 

 individuals evidently seek higher altitudes, and the species may be 

 observed all the way to the scrubby conifers at timber line. Others, 

 however, probably remain and breed in the lowlands, as summer 

 records for several localities are at hand." 



In Esmerelda County, Nevada, and Mono County, California, 

 Jean M. Linsdale (1928) found canescens- — ■ 



present in small numbers along the streams above the 8,000-foot contour 

 line. They were always near water and were usually found at the edges of 

 springy places where there were thickets of aspens and birches with dense 

 ground covers of rose, gooseberry, or alder. The birds were found near snow- 

 drifts where there was sufficient moisture and vegetation for their needs. Not 

 a single individual was seen of heard on the nearby, dry, mountain sides which 

 were covered with sage brushes and pinons. Tolmie warblers frequented the 

 underbrush in the same places as the fox sparrows. The green-tailed towhee, 

 often recorded as occurring in the same habitat as the fox sparrow, was numerous 

 in this region in all the drier situations but only a few individuals were noted 

 in surroundings favored by fox sparrows and those individuals were not limited 

 in their ranges so closely to the stream sides as were the fox sparrows. 



Grinnell and Miller (1944) describe the summer habitat of fulva as 

 "large bushes and small conifers, and willow and aspen thickets, 

 usually near water courses or meadows. Ceanothus patches in 

 openings in the forest, streamside tangles, and artemisia brush near 

 meadows or where mixed with other denser cover are typical situations 

 occupied by this race. In each of these places, low, fairly dense, 

 protective cover and leaf litter on the ground are afforded. Water 

 or somewhat damp ground may also be a requirement." 



The}' state the race megarhynchus inhabits: 



In summer, most typically, tracts of Ceanothus cordulatus and manzanita, 

 either in the form of large brush fields or in large clumps scattered in broken 

 forest. To less extent other low cover providing similar dense protecting foliage; 

 aspen thickets and streamside willow and alder tangles in the mountains may be 

 inhabited. The brush in which these birds live, owing to temperature conditions 

 in the zones occupied, provides at ground level, cool and somewhat moist places — 

 refuges during the day from the high temperature and insolation of the bush 

 tops. A requirement of all Fox Sparrows- — leaf litter in which to forage — is 

 amply supplied, although it is drier and harsher than in the breeding ranges of 

 more northern forms. Nest locations are either above ground in the rugged, 

 thorny bushes or sunk in the ground at their bases. In singing, as from bush tops 

 or young conifers, the birds do not venture far from the shelter of the bushes and 

 in moving about over the nesting domain covered alleyways are used perhaps 

 more than flight lines over the brush. 



