CALIFORNIA SAGE SPARROW 1013 



Late dates of fall departure are: Washington — Grant County, 

 November 4. Oregon — Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, October 

 1. Idaho — Rupert, September 16. Wyoming — Rock Creek, Octo- 

 ber 25. Utah— Book Cliffs, October 10. 



Egg dates. — (The data concern the species as a whole.) California: 

 17 records, March 29 to July 6; 9 records, May 7 to June 6. 



Colorado: 2 records. May 20 and June 25. 



Idaho: 2 records, June 25 and July 7. 



Nevada: 7 records, April 1 to June 14. 



Oregon: 7 records, May 9 to June 18. 



Washington: 3 records, March 25 to ji^pril 13. 



AMPHISPIZA BELLI CANESCENS GrinneU 



California Sage Sparrow 

 Contributed by Alden H. Miller 



Habits 



This race is closest in color and size to Amphispiza belli nevadensis 

 with which it intergrades in the northern part of the Inyo district of 

 California, Compared with nevadensis, it is smaller and slightly 

 darker; the back streaking is reduced or lacking and the moustache marks 

 and streakings of the Jflanks are somewhat more prominent. The 

 best distinguishing featiu-e is size, and this, as expressed in ^dng 

 length averages, is about 10 percent less as Grinnell's original table 

 (1905b) of measurements showed. 



The subspecies canescens ranges from the Inyo area of California 

 and bordering Nevada south to the southern San Joaquin Valley and 

 the adjacent brushlands of the inner and upper levels of the coastal 

 mountains; its range also encircles the Mohave Desert basins on the 

 north, west and south, from which this form is absent in the 

 breeding season. 



Like the northern sage sparrow, canescens thrives in the Artemisia 

 brush in the upper elevations of its range, but it extends beyond this 

 extensively into the Atriplex of the floor of the southern end of the 

 San Joaquin Valley. Here it nests at low elevations, such as 200 

 feet near Tulare Lake. On the east side of the Sierra Nevada it 

 nests up to 8,000 feet (Grinnell and Miller, 1944). On the Grapevine 

 Moim tains of western Nevada I found that canescens "filtered up 

 through openings in the [pinon] trees from * * * centers of abun- 

 dance at lower levels" (Miller, 1946). It did not use pinons, in fact 

 avoided them, yet ■within the pinon belt it foimd well isolated 

 tracts of brush up to 7,500 feet which it occupied for nesting. 



