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VOL. XII 
SOME BIRD NOTES FROM VENTURA COUNTY 
By J. R. PEMBERTON 
D URING June and July of this year the writer was engaged in geological work 
in Ventura County, California. The haunts of rocks and birds are identical 
and no amount of conscientiousness of a man toward his job will keep him 
from dropping a fossil now and then, and spotting some old or new feathered 
acquaintance. Such, indeed, was my experience, and even if I did miss a few 
geological landmarks I hope it may in a way be justified by the following bird 
notes. Birds in this region were numerous, and in great variety. An extended 
account would for the most part be a repetition of known facts, so I give only the 
interesting, at least to me, notes which I took. 
Observations were made upon several species of birds which one would hardly 
expect to find summering in Ventura County. These few species are regularly 
transient in this region, but pass on in the spring for the Sierra Nevada where their 
summer home is made. The migration is, no doubt, because of the instinctive desire 
for the peculiar conditions in which breeding must take place. It is interesting to 
speculate upon the conditions necessary to cause birds of this kind to remain. 
The interesting stragglers are natives of the Transition zone. The higher 
parts of the Santa Ynez Mountains are in this zone and it is in these mountains 
and along the edges that the following birds were noted. 
Dendroica nigrescens. Black-throated Gray Warbler. Frequently seen along 
the Rincon Creek, from Stanley Park, with an elevation of 400 feet to the summit 
of the Santa Ynez Mountains, elevation 4900 feet. At the summit, amid a thick 
growth of Pseitdotsuga macrocai'pa, surroundings were found which were apparently 
identical with those at the home of this bird in the low Sierras. On June 23, 1909, 
a male bird was watcht for some time as it carried food to a brood of young. The 
nest was built among the leaves of a fir, at the end of a limb about 30 feet above 
the ground. The female was not seen. The characteristic song of this species 
when heard, would immediately impress one by the apparently perfect happiness of 
this bird, so far a\yay from its usual summer home. 
Dendroica auduboni. Audubon Warbler. A single male was watcht several 
minutes and carefully identified on July 3, 1909, on the headwaters of the Santa 
Ynez river, at an elevation of 2500 feet. 
Lanivireo solitarius cassini. Cassin Vireo. This loud-calling Vireo was seen 
and heard in many places in Matilija Canyon, on Rincon Creek, Coyote Creek and 
Santa Ana River in numbers nearly equaling Vireosylva gilva swciinsoni. While 
usually given as a summer resident of the Sierras, this Vireo has been found nesting 
at several localities in the Coast Ranges. Cohen records it from Eexington, Santa 
Clara County; Beck records it from near San Jose; Mailliard from Paicines, San 
Benito County, and the writer has later to record it from the Santa Lucia Moun- 
tains in Monterey County. Ventura County, however, is the most remote place in 
the Coast Ranges where this bird has been found in numbers in summer. 
Piranga ludoviciana. Western Tanager. The commonest of the unusual birds 
met with in Ventura County. All along the fir-covered tops of the Santa Ynez 
Mountains this bird was encountered. At our camp in Stanley Park, on Rincon 
Creek, at an elevation of 450 feet, a fine male bird used to pick bread crumbs from 
the ground around the table, and even from the table itself. The Japanese cook 
finally caught this bird and kept it some days, when it finally died. The female 
was never seen. This was on June 23, 1909. 
