224 Kennedy, Fruit-eating Habits of Sage Thrasher. [April 



FURTHER NOTES ON THE FRUIT-EATING HABITS OF 



THE SAGE THRASHER IN THE YAKIMA 



VALLEY, WASHINGTON. 



BY CLARENCE HAMILTON KENNEDY. 



In 'The Auk' for April, 1911, I reported the extensive damage 

 done by Sage Thrashers (Oreoscoptes montanus) in the vineyard 

 on this ranch. My observations and efforts to lessen the damage 

 done were continued through the past season and are of interest. 



While occasional Thrashers were seen on the ranch during the 

 spring and early summer months, they did not appear this season 

 in numbers until the middle of August when the Campbell's early 

 grapes were ripening. For some reason they did not come early 

 enough this season to eat the blackberries and raspberries. How- 

 ever, when they did come in August they were as numerous as at 

 any time during the previous year. 



Anticipating the damage they might do, I combated them in 

 two ways. 



First, the summer pruning to remove the extra foliage was 

 omitted on those varieties, which had suffered the most damage the 

 year previous, for I had noticed, that more damage had been done 

 on the exposed bunches, than on those which were hidden by the 

 foliage. While the Thrashers attempted to do as much damage as 

 in the previous season, this extra foliage effectually protected 

 nearly all of the bunches, and concentrated the damage on the 

 few that were exposed. It was cheaper to sacrifice these alto- 

 gether to the Thrashers, than to trim a few damaged berries from 

 each of many clusters. The serious fault of this measure was that 

 it delayed the ripening about ten days, which reduced the value 

 of the crop. This method saved the Campbell's Early, which is 

 the first variety to ripen, but it failed to save the Tokays and other 

 Vitis mnifcra varieties, which began ripening three weeks after 

 the Campbell's Early. 



To save these I began the second method, namely killing the Sage 

 Thrashers with a shotgun. The year previous I had tried shooting 

 a few to see if the}' could be frightened away but failed to intimi- 

 date them. They are apparently not quick or intelligent birds. 



