16 BIRDS OF THE PAP AGO SAGTJAEO NATIONAL MONUMENT. 



above the clam the inclosing mountains are steep and precipitous, 

 leaving a scant margin of room for the road which winds along the 

 water's edge. 



To the student of birds the lake makes an especial appeal as the site 

 of the Salt Eiver bird reservation, established by the Federal Gov- 

 ernment in 1909, a sanctuary wherein the birds are safe from human 

 molestation. This includes a narrow strip of land around the lake, 

 immediately adjoining the water. The impounding of this immense 

 body of water in a desert region has made surprisingly little change 

 in the bird life at this point. The abrupt mountain sides flanking the 

 two former valleys of the Salt and the Tonto Rivers, respectively, and 

 now forming the shores of the lake, are far too steep and rocky to per- 

 mit of the establishment of growths of aquatic plants such as might 

 be looked for in a place of this sort, and desert vegetation persists to 

 the water's edge. The banks everywhere drop so abruptly as to leave 

 no stretches of shallow water to support such growths as are usual 

 about most lakes, and there are absolutely no nooks or inlets margined 

 with reeds, grass, or willows; there is a consequent dearth of the 

 water-loving birds which customarily seek such places. 



Just below the present outlets of the Salt and Tonto Rivers into 

 the lake there are clumps of dead cottonwoods and willows, killed by 

 the rising waters, but with their tops projecting above the surface 

 of the lake. These tree tops have been utilized by Farallon cormo- 

 rants, pallid great blue herons, and black-crowned night herons as 

 nesting sites, and there are now thriving colonies of these three species 

 of birds at these points. This is the only conspicuous change in the 

 bird life of the region that has been brought about by the creation of 

 Roosevelt Lake. But one other water bird was seen the killdeer 

 and the numbers of these nesting about the shores of the lake are 

 probably no greater than the population formerly inhabiting the 

 river valleys in the same region before the lake was made. 



The land birds afford the greatest interest. There is a goodly 

 variety of these, and a greater number of individuals than seems 

 apparent at a first inspection of the country. 



The account of one morning's observations will give a fairly com- 

 prehensive idea of the bird life existent about the lake ; for the cen- 

 sus of this one forenoon (June 6) included 41 species out of the total 

 of 52 noted by the writer about Roosevelt Lake. Some 5 miles from 

 the hotel, on the south side of the lake, is the Tonto National Monu- 

 ment, where there is located a cluster of cliff dwellings visible from 

 the stage road and relatively easy of access. This is naturally a 

 point to which visitors are directed, and it thus became the objective 

 of my first morning's excursion ; while an additional incentive lay 

 in the fact that the road, skirting the shore of the lake, lies within 

 the Salt River bird reservation for nearly the whole distance. 



