Jan., 1906 | 
25 
The Birds of Cheney, Washington 
BY ROSWELL H. JOHNSON 
C HENEY lies out on the N, P. R. R. sixteen miles southwest of Spokane in 
the county of that name. The altitude of the town is from 2350 to 2430 feet. 
Much of the territory investigated lies from fifty to one hundred feet below 
this level. The nearest locality in which the birds have been previously reported 
upon is Fort Sherman, at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. This is 2124 feet above sea level 
and forty-five miles northeast of Cheney. The avifauna there resembles that of 
Cheney more closely than does that of central Washington, as reported by Snod- 
grass. The mean annual temperature of Cheney for the past year was 48.8°. Un- 
fortunately there are no records for previous years, but this is nearly normal because 
the 1904 figures of the nearest station showed only a slight deviation above normal. 
The distribution by months is as follows: Jan. 34. i°; Feb. 30.8°; March 32. 7 0 ; 
April 48.6°; May 53. 2 0 ; June 61. o°; July 68.8°; Aug. 68.9°; Sept. 6o.8°; Oct. 51. o° 
Nov. 42. 4 0 ; Dec. 33. o°. 
According to the map of life-zones by C. Hart Merriam, Cheney would be in 
Upper Sonoran, but the biologic evidences seem to me to place it in the Transition. 
I believe that the Transition is much more largely represented in the Columbia 
River Basin than given by Merriam. The evidence for my contention is that the 
following birds breed here: mountain chickadee, Audubon warbler, intermediate 
junco, winter wren, western wood pewee, and particularly the mountain bluebird, 
Cassin finch, Clarke nutcracker, black-headed jay and Louisiana tanager. On the 
other hand, the breeding here of the black-chinned hummer, Arkansas kingbird, 
western lark sparrow, spurred towhee, lazuli bunting, and especially of the Bullock 
oriole precludes the possibility of a Boreal classification. 
On expeditions southward where the altitude was 200 feet less, I found the 
long-tailed chat, black-headed grosbeak and turkey vulture, and here the Lewis 
woodpecker and crow were more abundant than at Cheney. Fifty miles west and 
somewhat lower, the Brewer sparrow was seen in the sage brush. The dipper 
and canyon wren were observed where conditions were favorable to the south and 
east. Mt. Carleton (5806 ft.) and Mica 1 ’eak (5200 ft.) revealed the following 
birds late enough in June to be breeding: crossbill, white-breasted nuthatch, 
Clarke nutcracker, ruby-crowned kinglet, pileated woodpecker, Rocky Mountain 
jay and the varied thrush. Seeing this last bird on Mica Peak, June 3, seems 
especially noteworthy. The discovery of the western evening grosbeak in the 
winter in the Spokane Valley at 1900 feet, and the yellow-rumped warbler in the 
spring migration at Ritzville, fifty miles southwest and lower, probably indicate that 
these species were present but missed in Cheney. 
The two years were different in several respects. The winter of 1904 05 was 
a good “pine cone year,” so that black-headed jays and crossbills were not rare, as 
was the case the next winter. The pine siskin was abnormally rare in the first 
winter and the varied thrush in the second. 
The distribution of rainfall is as follows: Jan. 1.58 inches; Feb. 1.52; Mar. .64; 
Apr. 1. 1 7; May 2. 10; June .27; July .72; Aug. .31 ; Sept. i.22;Oct. 1.55; Nov. 4.06: Dec. 
2.00. Total 17.14 inches. '1 he result is a striking difference in the environment be- 
tween the spring and late summer. In the spring there is an abundance of bird 
food, plant lice being especially plentiful, while in the late summer and fall the 
country is parched. This in connection with the proximity of less dry regions in 
the mountains close at hand produces a marked effect upon bird migration. Many 
