Birds of Yakima County, Washington. 59 



A PRELIMINARY LIST OF THE BIRDS OF YAKIMA 

 COUNTY, WASHINGTON. 



BY WM. LEON DAWSON. 



Yakima county, in south-central Washington, attracts at- 

 tention as containing one of the most fertile and salubrious 

 sections in the entire state. The county measures, approxi- 

 mately, fifty by one hundred and twenty miles, but the cul- 

 tivated land lies almost exclusively along the Yakima river 

 and in those tributary valleys which center in or near the 

 city of North Yakima. The eastern and south eastern por- 

 tion, or greater half of the county, consists of arid and tree- 

 less plains interrupted by frequent low mountain ranges of 

 Columbian lava. The western third is increasingly moun- 

 tainous and correspondingly timbered, including, as it does, 

 Mt. Adams, and the eastern approaches of Mt. Rainier. 



As we should expect, therefore, the larger portion of the 

 county presents a fauna which is strictly Upper Sonoran; 

 but from there westward a transition is made to the Boreal 

 fauna; and in the extreme west a junction must be in some 

 way effected with the saturated forms of Puget Sound. 



Our interest, however, centers in a typical valley in the 

 most favored agricultural region, the middle-northern. The 

 Ahtanum valley stretches westward from North Yakima be- 

 tween barren hills for a distance of some twenty miles. At 

 this point the stream forks. Its barriers rise to the dignity 

 of mountains. Evergreen timber begins and increases in 

 density until we are lost in the depths of the higher ranges. 

 The valley proper is abundantly watered, both naturally and 

 artificially. The characteristic covers for birds are, there- 

 fore, furnished by willow and rose thickets, bounding the tiny, 

 sub-divided streams; high, open groves, or "timber cultures" 

 containing poplars and quaking asps; occasional swamps, or 

 "slews;" and by the universal setting of sage-brush. 



Amid these surroundings, and at a point about eight miles 

 up the valley, the writer lived three years — '85-87, and 



