July, 1906 | 
91 
Land Birds of San Onofre, California 
BY JOSEPH DIXON 
I N the extreme northwestern cornerofSan Diego County , California, there is an old 
Mexican grant which still remains undivided and unsettled. The general 
topography of this locality consists of low rolling hills which increase in 
height and ruggedness as they extend inland, until they terminate in the San 
Onofre Mountains which have an altitude somewhat less than 3000 feet. 
The San Mateo and San Onofre rivers drain nearly all of this part of the 
County. These rivers widen out near their mouths forming lagoons and 15 or 20 
acres of salt marsh. Extending inland along each of these river valleys there 
stretches an almost continuous grove of sycamores. The north sides of the hills 
are covered with live oaks and a tangled growth of poison oak and lilac brush. 
But near the coast the southern slopes, which lie fairly exposed to the sun, are 
covered with a sparse growth of “old man” and cacti. 
The whole country is one vast cattle range on which hunting has been, and 
is, prohibited, and as the conditions are unusually favorable there is an abund- 
ance of bird life which offers some exceptional opportunities to the bird student. 
For this reason Philip Pinger and myself have made three trips to this locality. 
The first trip was made May 27 to 30, 1904; the second, March 25 to April 2, 
1905; and the last visit extended from March 23 to April 1 of the present year. 
There had been a series of very dry seasons previous to our first visit and we 
found that the scant growth of grass had withered by May. The unusually 
abundant rains of the last two seasons have worked a wonderful change in the 
appearance of the country. The cactus which was formerly so conspicuous on 
the southern slopes is now hidden by a luxuriant growth of flowers and chilicothe 
vines. These seemingly innocent beds of flowers sometimes give the collector a 
painful surprise as he finds a large knob of cholla cactus tightly attached to his 
leg. These cactus patches are especially formidable to the collector as he tramps 
wearily campward in the darkness of evening. 
We made several short trips up and down the coast and twice we cut across 
the mesa and went up the river valleys for an all-day jaunt. But all of our obser- 
vations were made within a radius of six miles of our camp near the railroad sta- 
tion called San Onofre. 
American ravens were often seen flying in pairs across the valley or up the 
coast. They often circled around camp to see if they could find scraps of meat 
that had been thrown out. This is the only locality in which I have found this 
species to be tame. It was a daily occurrence to see four or five ravens hopping 
around the scrap heap near the tent and once we counted six ravens feeding in 
the door yard within a few feet of a fisherman’s tent. At another time we counted 
ten ravens and thirty or forty turkey vultures around the fresh carcass of a cow. 
This carcass was picked to the bone in three days. A male raven shot March 24, 
1906, had a meadow mouse, one Jerusalem cricket and a centipede 106 millimeters 
long, in its stomach. We found several ravens’ nests along the seacoast. These 
nests were situated in potholes usually near the tops of the cliff's. On March 24 
we flushed a raven from a nest which was about 75 feet from the top and 60 
feet from the bottom of the cliff. But we failed to secure the eggs. 
Among the large number of species found, none were more conspicuous by 
day and night than the hawks and owls. We found the western red-tail and 
sparrow hawks and the Pacific horned and barn owls especially abundant. In 
