276 Bird - Lore 



visiting Crater Lake and the surrounding mountains, I anticipated great 

 pleasure in observing just which of the famiUar valley birds would be found at 

 these high elevations, and what peculiar mountain species might be met with. 



Our trip of eighty miles from Medford, Ore., to Crater Lake, gave few 

 opportunities for bird-study, but in plant-life it presented a remarkable pano- 

 rama. Beginning with the greasewood and manzanita of the lowlands, we 

 passed in succession through growths of oaks, yellow pine, sugar pine, Douglas 

 fir, hemlock, chinquapin, lodgepole pine, and spruce, ending with the scattered, 

 and curious white-barked pine, and noble and alpine firs near the summit. 



From the entrance of the park to Anna Springs Camp, no birds were seen, 

 but at Anna Springs, at an elevation of about 6,000 feet, there was a flash of 

 blue through the pines, and, with his loud, familiar chack-a-chack-chack-chack, 

 a Steller's Jay sailed saucily out to meet us. So here at the very beginning an 

 old Jay problem was before me, for why should this bird, a familiar companion 

 in mischief with the California Jay in the low valley thickets, be so much at 

 home here among the peaks, hobnobbing, as we later learned, with the mis- 

 chievous Oregon Jays, which in turn appear to be unable to exist below a 

 certain invisible line on the mountain-side? 



Passing up the Munson Valley, Western Robins, and Oregon Juncos were 

 everj^where in evidence. The Juncos' nesting season was barely past and the 

 birds were in flocks containing a large percentage of striped and speckled 

 young in their first plumage. A little farther on, near the camp of the govern- 

 ment engineers, a couple of male Western Tanagers were seen chasing one 

 another through the tree-tops. We of the valley who raise fruit sometimes claim 

 that the crimson head of this gay bird comes from his ravenous appetite for 

 cherries, but these mountain birds were as bright as any that I have seen, so 

 no doubt the cherry juice theory is a mistake! 



Even if there were no Crater Lake at the end of the road, this Mount 

 Mazama region would be well worth a visit. Nowhere will you find more 

 curious canons, pleasanter mountain valleys, wider vistas, or more beautiful 

 and varied forests. Up and up we went, while off to the southeast the wide low 

 lands of the Klamath country opened out before us in the purple distance, 

 now clearly defined, now hidden in haze. Up and still up until the engine 

 beneath us began to wheeze and gasp in the rarefied atmosphere, and we 

 realized that this was no place for a car with a weak heart, but finally the last 

 grade was conquered, and we stepped out on the vast encircling rim of the 

 old crater. 



This is a bird article, so I am not going to attempt to write a description 

 of Crater Lake, only this I will say: It has been my observation that when- 

 ever men and women attain to a little height, whether it be the limbs of a 

 tree, the top of a building, or the summit of a hill, they invariably express 

 their sense of accomplishment and exaltation by calling at the top of their 

 voices, yet during my stay at the lake I did not hear a single hello or yodle. 



