THE OOLOGIST 



149 



about thirty feet from the ground at 

 the end of a long limb of a fir tree. 

 Marking this for future observations 

 I wandered on and located two nests 

 of Mt. Chickadee and watched parents 

 carrying food to the young which 

 thej^ contained, high up in the top of 

 a dead stub Red-breasted Nuthatches 

 were feeding young and a few feet 

 away a Red-shafted Flicker was seen 

 to enter its home. Along a roaring 

 mountain stream several Water Ouz- 

 els were noted and as they were 

 carrying food for the young I did not 

 try and locate the nests. Returning 

 to the hotel in the evening I saw a 

 fine male Western Evening Grosbeak 

 feeding about the kitchen door and as 

 this was the object of my trip I 

 spent some time watching this bird 

 till it was lost in the darkness. 



June 15th. Outside of the tracts 

 along the river most of the country 

 about here is hilly and some of the 

 hills are but rock piles so today I 

 worked in the hills and though I saw 

 a pair of the Grosbeaks I could see 

 no signs of nesting as yet. 



Green-tailed Towhees were fairly 

 common in the hills and a few White- 

 crowned Sparrows were noted and un- 

 der a large weed a bird was flushed 

 from its nest and one fresh egg and 

 though I did not touch this nest or 

 egg it was deserted. 



Some forty feet high in a large 

 stub of tree a pair of Mountain Blue- 

 birds were feeding their young and T 

 watched them for some time as they 

 hawked about in the air after insects, 

 about twenty feet away a Red-shafted 

 Flicker had its nest in a newly dug 

 cavity in a dead stub. I did not chop 

 into this cavity but wandered on to 

 where I heard a Sierra Grouse hoot- 

 ing and a careful search of the limbs 

 of a large tree revealed the bird sit- 

 ting close to the body of a tree on a 

 large limb. I threw several stones 



at the bird and as one hit it, it walked 

 out to end of limb and hopped to a 

 higher place and continuing this was 

 lost in high branches of the tree, 

 though it continued to "hoot." 



On my way back a pair of Grosbeaks 

 were seen; the female feeding on the 

 ground in a wet place, while the male 

 was in a tree nearby, calling occa- 

 sionally. I watched this pair till the 

 female joined the male in the tree 

 and both flew across the river where 

 I could not follow. 



June 17th. My objective point to- 

 day was a large lake seven miles 

 from the hotel. Nothing unusual oc- 

 curred on my way over but as I neared 

 the upperend of the lake I saw and 

 watched for some time that king of 

 Western Woodpeckers, the Pileated. 

 Like many mountain lakes there was 

 no vegetation on this and as result 

 no water birds were seen, under the 

 high trees in an old bed of a stream 

 a Thurbers Junco was flushed and it 

 took me some time to locate the nest 

 It was exceptionally well concealed 

 under a rock leaving but a small 

 place to enter, it had four fresh eggs. 

 Several Sierra Grouse were seen on 

 my way back but search as I could 

 no nests were noticed and on visiting 

 the place later no birds were noted. 



The day was clear and warm, Pa- 

 ciflc Nighthawks were flying about 

 up to eleven o'clock. Young Audu- 

 bons. Warblers, Thick-billed Spar- 

 rows and Thurbers Juncoes were 

 seen out of nests. 



On many of my trips Plumed Quail 

 were seen or heard and as I knew it 

 ought to be their nesting time I de- 

 cided that I must locate a nest so 

 when a bird flushed about twenty 

 feet away from a bunch of low grow- 

 ing manzanita bushes I commenced a 

 systematic search for its nest, work- 

 ing on all sidese from the bunch of 

 bushes I covered some twenty feet 



