Transcribing the field notes of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Collector: Grinnell-1925 Location: Mineral, 4800 ft. Date: June 19 Page Number: 2479

and the structure is ensconced in a tangle of dead twiggery in part supported by slanting ceanothus cordulatus stems - in a thicket of same - well shaded by green leafage above.

9:30 a.m. - Just followed a Ruby-crowned Kinglet's "yerruping," and found a pair upon the summit of a fir assaulting vigorously a Blue-fronted Jay. Nearby, a (female) Western Tanager was flying about and at another jay in the top of a fir. One of the Blue-fronted Jays seen plainly was a full-grown young-of-the-year.

10: a.m. - Mrs. G. just found a Yellow Warbler's nest, 8 feet up, saddled on crossing stems in midst of willow thicket on meadow - perfectly typical site and construction for the species. Contents, 2 fresh eggs.

10:45 a.m. - Across the highway from camp, on a portion of Battle Creek Meadows that has had no cattle on it yet this year; grass and flowers a foot high; blue camas abundant in places; here and there clumps of willow; and many lodgepole pines, singly now and then, or in tracts. Birds I hear are: Western Meadowlark, two in full song; Robin, 2 or more in song; Lazuli Bunting, 2 singing; Warbling Vireo (one singing); Audubon Warbler (a (female) close by in a l-p pine); Calif. Purple Finch (one singing); Junco (one singing); Traill Flycatcher (pair close to me, and Mrs. G has seen one carrying a billfull of something into the midst of a willow thicket and in investigating); Lincoln Sparrow (a singing male centers within 3 acres about us).

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: Mineral Date: June 22 Page Number: 2492

Mr. Hoffmann shot an adult male, with a bob-tailed young one, of Golden-crowned Kinglet, in a dense group of small fir here on the Forest Service camp ground this afternoon. I saw a Red-shafted Flicker in flight over the tree-tops - not a common species here - in fact, far less seen than the Pileated Woodpecker.

June 23 10:00 a.m. - we have come 2 1/2 miles airline west of camp along side of Battle Creek Meadows, following the old road (see U.S.G.S quadrangle) to a little beyond the old bridge across Battle Creek. Big forest trees, yellow pines, fir, cedars, and sometimes sugar pines, extend down to the edge of the "meadows"; the latter consist of open pasture and also tracts of willows and lodgepole pines. The present highway pretty much parallels the old road to this point but thence goes down the canyon on the north side, to cross it several hundred feet, altitude, lower. At this end of the Meadows, the mountains pinch together, and the creek bottom ^^soon becomes a narrow canyon. Here are aspens, and a few alders. The Meadows are the property of one W. L. Gerber (?), and are fenced; everywhere astride the fences the vegetation is grazed down by the cattle and sheep which go thru [sic] the country or are seen at large over the forest lands; but inside the fences, the vegetation looks fine - not overgrazed - some of the enclosures not yet grazed at all, possibly reserved for hay. Took a 1 1/2 hour census of birds notes from the road near camp to here, as follows:

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: Mineral Date: June 23 Page Number: 2493

Mt. Chickadee (2); Western Tanager (5); Fox Sparrow (2); Chipping Sparrow (18); Hermit Warbler (3); Tolmie Warbler (1); Calaveras Warbler (1); Warbling Vireo (8); Calif. Purple Finch (4); Wood Pewee (13); Lazuli Bunting (3) Pileated Warbler (1); Spotted Sandpiper (2, along sparsely pebbled margins of creek); Traill Flycatcher (1); Yellow Warbler (2); Robin (29+, one seen carrying mud up to nest 50 feet above and on lowermost branch of huge yellow pine); Cassin Vireo (1); Audubon Warbler (7); Blue-fronted Jay (1); Turkey Vulture (2, one circling above vicinity of store (?), and one above woods at this end of the meadow) Brewer Blackbird (1, [female symbol] bathing and preening, as if just off nest); Pine Siskin (1); Ruby-crowned Kinglet (2); Canada Nuthatch (1); Crossbill (1, loud "chup" note heard from tips of yellow pine, given persistently, until bird flew, and also then); Killdeer (2); Meadowlark (2); Sierra Creeper (1); Western Bluebird (2); Western Lark Sparrow (1, [male symbol] singing volubly from well up in yellow pine at edge of meadow); Wright Flycatcher (2); Olive-sided Flycatcher (1); Solitaire (1); Pygmy Nuthatch (2, in different places, in upper parts of large yellow pines); White-headed Woodpecker (2); Modoc Hairy Woodpecker (2); Red-winged Blackbird (1+, heard from willows along stream, far out in meadows); Cassin Purple Finch (2, mating pair).

Total, for 1 1/2 hrs., 8:15-9:45: 38 species, 133 individuals.

1 p.m. Still at west end of Battle Creek Meadows. Have heard a Black-headed Grosbeak singing, and a Red-shafted Flicker. Just saw a Black-tailed Jack Rabbit (Lepus c. californicus) lope up the hill thru the snow bushes, from

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: Mineral, 4800 Date: July 2 Page Number: 2513

With Mrs. G. around and thru [sic] willow bogs and thru [sic] adjacent tracts of lodgepole pines on "Battle Creek Meadows." Associates in one area of willow thickets, tall grass, blossoming herbs, and luxurious verotrum, with here and there fallen lodgepole pines, snags, and some standing trees of same species, were: Song Sparrow, Lincoln Sparrow, Lazuli Bunting, Traill Flycatcher, Sierra Junco, Golden Pileolated Warbler and Yellow Warbler. A nearby abundance of Labrador tea emphasized the Canadian Boreal complexion of this aggregation - and yet there were the Buntings and Song Sparrows. We spent a good deal of time in our efforts to collect males of the latter - I don't shoot females of adult birds now, for really all of them are obviously concerned for young, either in the nest or at large but still dependent. Heard a Grouse "hooting" in the same tract of lodgepoles where we found the young on the 20th (June). It appears that the males, at least here, do stay in the vicinity of their broods and that they continue to "hoot" long after the actual mating season.

In a tract of good-sized, much branched lodgepoles across the highway in the main big meadow, we found a Calliope Hummer's nest. I heard the hum overhead and caught sight of the female just in time to see her go on to the nest, where she staid a minute moving about. Later we watched her 50 yards or so off plucking web from dead branches in the shade 10 feet up, which web she took to the nest. She

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: Mineral, 4800 ft. Date: July 2 Page Number: 2516

we came. The four young are saved in formalin: 6282 Hammond Flycatcher, 4 small young under this number.

Other birds seen on the big meadow this forenoon were: Vaux Swift (3 flew close over the tree-tops); Tree Swallow (twittering young in company of adults were flying about over the open part of the meadow); Western Bluebird (a family on fence and in meadow).

July 3 5 p.m. - With the family on Turner Mountain, the highest elevation immediately south of Battle Creek Meadows - altitude "6300 feet", according to Mr. J.M. Stark, in winter a school-teacher in Corning, for the three summer months Forest Service Lookout on this Mountain. From here, we get a grand view (after a thunderstorm - 43 lightning strikes counted by Mr. Stark - earlier this afternoon) of Brokeoff Mt. and Mt. Lassen, and the vast surrounding timbered mountain mass. On the north side of this mountain is a perfect glacial cirque (a residual snow bank under its rim now) with a series of hummocky moraines, and two lakes impounded. A few scrub red firs and two or three alpine hemlocks and mountain pines straggle around the uppermost rim; below, around the lakes, are close stands of hemlock and lodgepole pines, the timber elsewhere above about the 5500 contour being red-fir. But the greater portion of the area in the vicinity of the top, is covered densely with chaparral. Right here on top this chaparral is wind-beaten but dense, and