THE-C9nL?R 



Volume X July-A\jgvist 1908 Number ■^ 



SIERRA FORMS ON THE COAST OF SONOMA COUNTY, CAEIFORNIA 



By JOSEPH MAILLIARD 



WITH TWO PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR 



ON May 11, 1908, I started with my son for a week's collecting trip to a 

 point some 90 miles by rail and stage north of San Francisco, principally 

 for the purpose of ascertaining which form of chickadee would be found 

 breeding there, I expecting to find something very close to Partis rufescens — which 

 expectation was fully realized. During the stormy week of our stay at this place, 

 which was on the ridge some 1400 to 1600 feet high just back of Fort Ross, Sonoma 

 County, but two or three miles from the ocean shore, I was greatly surprised to find 

 breeding there birds which one associates onl}^ with the Sierra region or the foot- 

 hills thereof, and not at all with the coast proper. H. H. Sheldon, in The Condor, 

 Vol. X, No. 3, has described the finding of nests of the Monterey Hermit Thrush 

 (^Hylocichla g. slevini) and Western Golden-crowned Kinglet {Regulus s. oliva- 

 ceus) in this same locality; but in addition to these species I found Audubon War- 

 bler (^Dendroica aiidiibojii) and the Black-throated Gray Warbler {Dejidroica 

 nigrescens) apparently breeding, and found a junco {/unco h. thirheri ?^ with 

 nests and young. No actual nests of the two above warblers were discovered and 

 only male birds were taken, but from their actions and notes, and from the number 

 of Audubon Warblers, at any rate, flitting about the higher parts of the tall Douglas 

 spruce trees — both sexes being seen — there is but little room for doubt as to their 

 being present for any other purposes than breeding. They certainly did not act 

 like or have the appearance of migrants — and at this season they would of necessity 

 be late ones if in this category — in spite of the fact that these birds are not supposed 

 to breed on or near the ocean shore. 



Another surprise was the fact that the Cyanocitta of this region — which we 

 might call the South Fork of the Gualala River to the mouth of the Russian River — 

 is vastly different from the Steller Jay of the more northern coast and the Coast Jay 



