July, 1913 
137 
SIERRA STORMS AND BIRDS 
By F. S. HANFORD 
A fter the last of the heavy winter storms piles up great quantities of snow 
on the peaks and higher elevations of the Sierras, there comes a time when 
the sun shines for successive days and the iron grip of winter is lifted from 
the land. From now on bright and sunshiny weather is the rule, except for several 
light storms occurring in May and June, and the mid-summer thunder showers in 
July or August. The spring storms after April are comparatively short in dura- 
tion, lasting but a day or so, but in the course of a few hours four or five inches 
of wet and heavy snow may fall. Alternate periods of rain and sunshine soon 
turn the snow to slush and it quickly vanishes, though not without considerable 
damage to nesting birds, esjiecially those species that nest on the horizontal 
branches of conifers. 
The summer thunder storms are severe above 8,000 feet elevation. While 
abundant showers of life-giving rain refresh the lower levels, hail and snow, va- 
ried with periods of drenching rain, combine to render life miserable to the trav- 
eler higher up. At Lake of the Woods, July 12, 1912, such a storm overtook us, 
lasting, with intermissions, for seven days. Great banks of cumulus clouds would 
mount into the clear sky over the southern horizon about noon, and in an hour 
we would be deluged with floods of rain, varied with half hour periods of hail, 
lasting sometimes far into the night. The hail stones which fell during these 
storms averaged from one half to one inch in diameter, and, plunging and rip- 
ping through the foliage of the trees, they would strike the ground with great 
force, rebounding several feet. After being struck on the head by several stones, 
I had no wish to have the performance repeated, and always sought shelter as 
soon as the bombardment began. 
The destruction caused by severe hail storms to the nests and young uf the 
mountain birds is at once apparent. Many species, finches, tanag'ers. Evening 
Grosbeaks and others, are found nesting until late in July in the Pyramid Peak 
region. Some of the late nests, perhaps, are the result of the earlier ones being 
destroyed by snow or jays; others contain second broods. 
The few notes transcribed below were hastily written down during the storm 
and after, and may prove of interest. Although almost two months were spent in 
the high Sierras in 1912, __ bird study was a secondary consideration during the 
trip, and the nests examined were discovered by accident. Probably if a systeni- 
atic search had been made, many more victims of the storm jyvould have been 
found. 
A mother Cassin Purple Finch continued to feed her young in a nest high up 
in a hemlock during a few hours of rain; at the first crashing downpour of the 
hail, the nestlings were silenced and the parent was seen no more. 
Other nests were examined during the week of storm, and in almost every 
case they were found abandoned, the young dead, the nests battered and soggy. 
We were informed of a nest of the Western Evening Grosbeak containing young 
birds, on the opposite shore of the lake, but on visiting that locality a day after- 
ward no traces of the birds could be found. 
Of the destruction of the nests of ground building birds, a single illustration 
will be sufficient. A nest with eggs of the White-crowned Sparrow was found in 
a situation usual with this species, in the shelter of bushes and growing vegeta- 
tion. In this instance the small, dense bush that sheltered the nest could have up- 
