THE OOLOQI8T 



95 



first nest in a pine tree growing along 

 the side of the reservoir back of the 

 town. It was a Brewer Blackbird's, a 

 rather bulky nest made of dried 

 grasses, and within reach of my hand 

 on the first limb. No eggs as yet had 

 been deposited as it was just the be- 

 ginning of their season. No doubt 

 there were other nests being built 

 higher up in the same tree as these 

 birds usually nest in colonies, and 

 quite a number of these birds were 

 loitering about the reservoir. 



My next find was the nest of the 

 Swarth's California Jay (Aphelocoma 

 californica cocleptica Swarth). This 

 was located fifteen feet up in the 

 crotch of a buckeye tree, and con- 

 tained an incomplete' set of three 

 fresh eggs. The buckeye seems to be 

 a favorite tree in this locality; the 

 center part of these trees being quite 

 bare, the nests are placed at the end 

 of the limb where the leaves are close- 

 ly bunched and conceal the nest fairly 

 well. The next nest I came to was 

 also of the Swarth's California Jay. 

 This was ten feet up in a buckeye, 

 and the bird being loath to leave, I 

 walked back and forth beneath the 

 nest observing her before she flew 

 off of the five fresh eggs. This nest 

 was built of sticks and lined with 

 horse-hairs and fine strips of bark, and 

 was not far from a paved highway 

 which wends its way through the 

 hills, overlooking the water, to Marti- 

 nez. Not far from the Jay's nest in 

 the opposite end of a large clump of 

 poison oak brush was the nest of the 

 California Shrike, three feet up. 

 Seven young Shrikes, some five or 

 six days old, opened their large yel- 

 low mouths to greet me, or rather pos- 

 sibly they wei-e the ones that expected 

 to be greeted with some insect, or 

 morsel of bird or mouse. However, I 

 carried no food of this character, so 

 dropped a few bits of bread from my 

 sandwich down their throats and left 



them, while the parent birds flew off 

 to a distant telephone wire, quite re- 

 lieved at my departure. 



I now spent some time looking for 

 a cavity in which a Sparrow Hawk 

 might be nesting, as a pair of these 

 birds seemed quite anxious at my 

 presence in a certain section of the 

 hills; however, I found no nest of this 

 species until later on in the season. 

 Occasionally a few Quail would flush 

 from the underbrush. When these 

 birds are on the ground beneath the 

 brush they prefer to keep their dis- 

 tance by running rather than by tak- 

 ing flight. Several times I stopped to 

 admire that diminutive little creature, 

 the Anna Hummingbird, as it would 

 sit perched on the topmost twig, pre- 

 ferably a dead or leafless one, of some 

 low bush or tree. Some individuals 

 are not at all shy and would allow me 

 to approach within three feet of them. 

 In a' deserted Woodpecker's hole from 

 which 1 collected a set of Plain Tit- 

 mouse last season I find the nesting 

 materials of this bird, but no eggs as 

 yet. The nest is freshly built and 

 composed of grasses with a few feath- 

 ers and a piece of squirrel's tail for 

 lining. Five eggs were laid in this 

 hole during the week following this 

 visit. 



As it was now getting towards dusk 

 1 began to wend my way to the ferry 

 to return home. As 1 hurried by a 

 low bushy buckeye, I tossed into it a' 

 piece of dried cow dung and out fiew 

 another Jay of the subspecies, ooclep- 

 tica. The four eggs were of the red- 

 dish brown type, which to my experi- 

 ence are not so common as the green. 

 When I blew these last eggs at home 

 that evening, two of them proved to 

 be well advanced in incubation while 

 the other two were infertile. 



Emerson A. Stoner, 



Benicia, Cal. 



