INTRODUCTION 



Jackson County in southwestern Oregon occupies 4,525 km^. The 

 county is situated between 42°00' and 43°00' north latitude, and 

 between 122°17' and 123°14' west longitude. About 113 km from 

 the Pacific Ocean, the county is bounded by California to the south 

 and by the Oregon counties of Josephine, Douglas, and Klamath 

 to the west, north, and east, respectively (Fig. 1). About 95,000 

 people live in Jackson County, most of them concentrated in the 

 cities of Medford and Ashland in Bear Creek Valley. The remaining 

 population is chiefly scattered throughout the Lower Rogue River 

 and Bear Creek valleys. Agriculture (orchards, especially pears, and 

 mixed farmland) dependent on summer irrigation, light industry 

 (primarily lumber), and residential areas occupj^ most of the land area 

 below 610 m elevation in the Lower Rogue and Bear Creek valleys. 

 About 70 percent of the county above 610 m is coniferous forest. 



The distribution and occurrence of the Jackson County avifauna 

 are of interest because the county is a small geographic area with 

 numerous plant communities. In the Rogue River Valley, a large 

 variety of breeding species similar to the avifauna of areas of Cali- 

 fornia . several hundred kilometers to the south was reported by 

 Gabrielson (1931). Since then six papers (Stevenson and Fitch 1933; 

 Richardson 1961; Richardson and Sturges 1964; and Browning 

 1966a; 1966b; 1972) have dealt with certain birds of specific areas of 

 the county. Thomas McCamant compiled 10 years of field notes into, 

 an unpublished checklist with specific data on his more significant 

 observations from 1947-57. The University of Oregon Press printed 

 a checkhst, "Birds of Southern Oregon," compiled at Southern Oregon 

 College by Franklin W. Sturges. 



I began field investigations in Jackson County in 1957. Since then 

 I have visited most of the county and have conducted field observa- 

 tions or collected in all areas listed in the gazetteer. From 1965 to 

 1967 I attempted especially to explore previously uninvestigated 

 regions of Jackson County. The Union Creek area (1965) and the 

 southeastern corner of the county (1966, 1967) were surveyed for 

 breeding species. 



This report is based on information from the literature, specimens, 

 photographs, unpublished notes of countless individuals, and my own 

 investigations of Jackson County. Specimens cited in this report are 

 in the Carl Richardson Bird and Mammal Collection at Southern 

 Oregon College, Ashland, Oreg. 



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