162 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XII 
attracted great flocks of migrating water birds: sandpipers of all sizes and kinds, 
from the greater yellowlegs — darting, dashing, noisy yellowlegs — to the modest, 
quiet little sandpipers — bairdi and minutiUa — plover, willets, handsome black-neckt 
stilts, and long-billed avocets and curlew, one with the bill turning up, the other 
down. One meadow was irrigated at a time, and so a field that was all water, white 
wings, and a babel of bird notes one day, would be dry, bare, and silent the next, the 
procession having followed the man with the shovel. I wanted to follow too, for the 
sight of acres of water birds was always fascinating. The delicate gray and white 
forms of the wheeling flocks against the background of blue sky made a rarely beau- 
tiful sight, and with the sky for a background and the water for a mirror the birds were 
always making charming pictures. One of the rarest we saw was that of a delicate 
red sunset mirrored in a flooded field, in which white water fowl were wading. 
What a picture from the hart of the New Mexico desert country! A flock of nearly 
fifty long-billed curlew was seen one day; and at another time half a dozen of the 
large sickle-billed birds were found in a field surrounded by a restless evershifting 
throng of yellowlegs and other sandpipers. The liquid quality of the water-birds’ 
notes, spoken of bv Frank Bolles, was especially striking here when from an 
adjoining field came the dry land notes of sparrows. 
When a bird-catching falcon flew over, one and all of the white wings rose in 
terror; but a grasshopper-catching Swainson hawk might sit on a fence-post overlook- 
ing their field, or even fly down in it after his catch, and they would barely recog- 
nize his presence. Marsh hawks were often seen beating low over the alfalfa 
making dives with sprawling wings as they spied — was it a mouse or a cotton rat? 
— and once we saw one standing in the midst of a field, apparently watching 
for grasshoppers, his queer rulT-encircled face looking strikingly owl-like. 
Wherever w T e went we found birds; for the rich irrigated ranch attracted 
hordes of migrants among the land as well as water birds to feed on its insects, 
weed seeds and small mammals; and they were a particularly interesting assembly 
after weeks in a desert range. In one old weed field we came on a flock of perhaps 
two hundred lark buntings, migrants of the plains with their fall suits of brown. 
White-neckt ravens were common in small flocks, apparently gathering in from the 
deserts after the nesting time. Large mixt flocks of blackbirds, cowbirds, red- 
wings, and yellowheads, were often found in the cottonwoods squawking, gurgling, 
and singing a regular marsh medley; and one morning thousands of yellowheads 
came with a loud noise of wings — a long black cloud — and stopt at the trees 
near the ranch house. As they lit in masses a great clattering broke out, each of 
the crowded throng apparently clamoring for standing room. When they were 
settled, the trees lookt as if laden down with black fruit. We slipt out to get a 
closer look at them and found long crowded lines on the barbed wire fences, and 
numbers on the ground in such close array they seemed in sore danger of treding 
on one another’s toes. Near at hand their orange oval fronts and jet black 
plumage made them indeed a splendid sight, and when they started up we ex- 
claimed with admiration, for their epaulets flasht out snow white on their black, 
velvety coats. 
As we went back and forth thru the lanes to the prairie-dog town, tame young 
shrikes would sit calmly on the fence posts and let us pass, a cuckoo would some- 
times fly swiftly out of a cottonwood hedge where it had been engaged in its 
favorit occupation, investigating caterpillar nests, flocks of redwings with glowing- 
epaulets would circle around and disappear in a field of milo maize, the shrill pipe 
of an oriole would be followed by a yellow flash from a cottonwood, and a sweet 
blackbird chorus would come from a tree top. Occasionally a mockingbird would 
be seen along the lanes; but it was a striking fact that while the mockers abounded 
