410 Bent, Summer Birds of Southwestern Saskatchewan. [o U t k 



a considerable growth of underbrush, extensive patches of rose 

 bushes, sage-brush and various willows, forming in some places 

 dense thickets of the large willows, growing eight or ten feet high, 

 with a few scattered poplar trees among them. The sandhills 

 were the favorite resorts of the Prairie Sharp-tailed Grouse where 

 they found congenial shelter among the willows and convenient 

 dusting places in the sandy hollows. Nearly every available soli- 

 tary tree — poplars, cotton woods and willows — in such places 

 was occupied by a hawk's, owl's or crow's nest, seldom more than 

 15 feet from the ground. The underbrush offered a congenial 

 home for Clay-colored Sparrows where we found a number of nests 

 in the small 'silver willows' and 'badger brush', close to the ground. 



I designate as alkaline plains certain flat, level areas, sometimes 

 two or three miles wide, which were probably once the beds of 

 alkaline lakes, where the soil was strongly alkaline, forming slimy 

 mud in wet weather, or baked hard and dry under the hot summer 

 sun. Very little grass would grow in such places but the plains 

 were well covered with a stunted growth of sage-brush and cactus. 

 An occasional Burrowing Owl could be seen on the plains, but the 

 characteristic birds of the region were Horned Larks, Vesper 

 Sparrows and a few Lark Buntings, none of which were abundant. 

 With this brief description of the three classes of plains, which in 

 the aggregate comprised fully 95 per cent, of the whole region, we 

 will leave this comparatively uninteresting phase of the subject and 

 consider some of the more highly favored localities which we found 

 much richer in bird life and therefore of much greater interest 

 ornithologically. 



The timber belts along the streams, or 'creeks' as they were 

 called, proved to be the most fruitful collecting grounds and were 

 fairly teeming with small birds of many species. Many of the 

 creeks were practically treeless or nearly devoid of underbrush for 

 long distances, but a large portion of Skull Creek and nearly the 

 whole upper half of Maple Creek were more or less heavily tim- 

 bered. The largest trees, poplars, balms, cottonwoods, willows 

 and box elders were generally well scattered along the banks of 

 the streams, sometimes towering above the surrounding small 

 trees and underbrush to a height of 30 or 40 feet but more often 

 not exceeding 20 or 30 feet. Scattered groves of box elders 15 or 



