IS8 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



SOME BIRDS OF THE HIGH SIERRA. 



By William Frederic Bade. 



With photographs by the author. 



An occasional friendly letter of inquiry since we re- 

 turned from last summer's outing has reminded me that 

 many of those who saw me hunt birds of the High Sierra 

 with a camera are interested to know the results. Dur- 

 ing previous excursions into the Sierra Nevada, the 

 remarkably interesting avifauna of the boreal zone had 

 aroused in me a desire to return some time with a better 

 photographic equipment than the one with which I 

 secured the water ouzel pictures in 1903.* After a long 

 absence from the camp fires of the Sierra Club, circum- 

 stances made it possible for me to join the uncommonly 

 adventurous outing of 191 1. Lightness and compactness 

 being the main consideration, I took along a No. 3 Special 

 Kodak, 3^x4^ in., with a Zeiss Kodak anastigmat lens, 

 f.6.3, and a compound shutter with a maximum speed of 

 one two-hundred and fiftieth of a second. 



My first opportunity presented itself in the Little 

 Yosemite, where Sierra Juncos {J unco oreganus thurberi) 

 were found nesting everywhere. A conspicuous flash of 

 white outer tail feathers on the edge of the trail usually 

 betrayed the presence of a junco's nest. Their manner, as 

 a rule, was quite confiding. Some of the females, with- 

 out attempting to decoy, made such an ostentatious dis- 

 play of themselves in leaving the nest that their purpose 

 to divert attention from it was quite plain. On the tenth 

 of July, toward evening, I flushed a junco near the trail 

 in Little Yosemite. Upon investigation I found a nest, 

 with incubated eggs, in the grass under a young pine 

 tree, and close to the edge of a little brook. After en- 

 tirely disappearing for a minute or two, the female came 

 flitting back stealthily through the low pine growth utter- 



*See Sierra Club Bulletin, Vol. V, No. 2, 1904, The Water-Ouzel at 

 Home. 



