OKLAHOMA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 41 



V. SOME BIRDS OF THE OKLAHOMA PANHANDLE 



By R. C. Tate 



Kenton, Oklahoma. 



Since very little has been published about the birds of the 

 Oklahoma Panhandle, it seems advisable to make a report of rr.y 

 observations there during a period of fourteen years from 1908 to 

 the present time — January 31, 1923. 



The Oklahoma Panhandle, comprising the three coun- 

 ties of Cimarron, Texas, and Beaver, is thirty-four miles in width 

 by one himdred and seventy miles in length ; its surface is a high 

 plain broken in the northwestern part of Cimarron county by the 

 "Black Mesa," and the deep, rocky canyons of the Cimarron river 

 and its many tributaries. The Beaver river, formed by the con- 

 fluence of the Currumpaw and Seneca creeks, flows through a 

 broad rather sandy valley in the southern part of this county and 

 on through Texas and Beaver counties Large sand hills and 

 shifting dunes mark its course through Beaver county. 



The land slopes eastward from an elevation of about 5,000 

 feet in Beaver county. 



Groves of cottonwood, hackberry, and willow trees, and thickets 

 of plum bushes occur at many places along the Beaver and Cim- 

 arron rivers. Cedars, pinyon, scrub oak, and chinaberry trees 

 grov/ on the hil'.s and in the canyons on both sides of the latter 

 river. Stinking sumac, black current bushes, an occasional mes- 

 quite, many tree cactus and hundreds of acres of yucca plants, and 

 sage brush together with native grasses comprise the wild vegeta- 

 tion of the region. 



Farms and cattle ranches comprise most of this area and towns 

 are few, Cimarron county having only two — Kenton and Boise City, 

 and no railroad. It is in Cimarron county that conditions are ideal 

 for birds that love isolated places. There are some sections of the 

 larger ranches in this county which no human being visits for 

 months, or possibly a year at a stretch and birds ranging therein 

 lead lives differing but little from those lived by their ancestors 

 in the days when the Indian and the buffalo held sway in this 

 section of the plains- 

 Much of the data for this list was collected while I was riding 

 after cattle on the different ranches, and in later years while 

 traveling over the same country by automobile. In addition to 

 this I have made many trips into the field for bird study alone, 

 often spending as much as a week in some spot of unusual interest. 

 The Marselus Bros., H. G. Wilson, C. F. Rowan, Brookhart Bros., 

 and H. C. Labrier ranches near Kenton, and the A-11 ranch in the 



