1925: Joseph Grinnell's field notes

S3 Page 70

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: San Jose, 2500 ft., lat. 31° Date: Oct. 30 Page Number: 2612

volplane fully 200 yards, from the top of the bluff out onto the valley floor. Before it took off my attention was attracted by its “growling” and snapping its bill rapidly several times.

Broke camp and left Colnett at 12:45 for Ensenada. Now (6 p.m.) camped on the divide (750 ft. alt. by the barometer) 3 miles west of Santo Tomas, about 25 miles short of Ensenada, having come about 60 miles over roads badly gullied by the rains. Came thru the Agave belt continuously past San Antonio ranch (where the dead agaves gathered in vast quantity serve as fuel for the boilers that run the oil well machinery there) and up the Cañon Salado. But from there on, past San Vicente to here, the flora has been of the interior Upper Sonoran Type, much like that around San Jose. Saw many Brewer Blackbirds around each ranch or habitation; rancho or habitation; two Mockingbirds on the mesa near San Vicente; also two Vesper Sparrows near the same place.

The rains have wrought a marker change in the appearance of things within the past six weeks. Not only is the ground green, bout many of the shrubs that were legless have now burst into brilliant green leafage. The “buckeye” is a notable instance of this.

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: To San Diego Date: October 31, 1925 Page Number: 2614

6:30 a.m. - Last night’s camp a pleasant one. Fog high, and things dry. Live oaks along the west-flowing (dry) watercourse; chaparral of “San Diegan” type on each hillside. Birds: Wrentits, numerously calling; Spotted Towhee; Linnet; Red-shafted Flicker; Audubon Warbler.

Got under way a little before 7 and reached Ensenada at 8:30. Within 10 miles north on Ensenada got a good view, close ranch, flying thru brush at roadside, of a Pigeon Hawk, fully adult, I am quite sure — dark blue back.

In Ensenada, went to see Goldbaum and his museum. The Governor of B.C., Rodriguez, has built him a very substantial little building, “El Museum Regional”, in which are some atrociously mounted vertebrates, but mostly geological specimens. The only thing I saw of special interest was a mounted Spoonbill (Ajaiah) taken [recently?] on the Hardy River by. Capt. E.W. Funcke.

Continued on to San Diego, 10 to 3:30; not delayed at all by the custom officials on either side the line.

Nov. 1 In San Diego: Last evening I called on Mr. Ingersoll at his house. Found him vigorous, and as enthusiastically interested in birds’ eggs as ever. He and Mr. + Mrs. John Burnham were up in the Sierras the past summer and had taken eggs of many good things, such as Sierra Grouse and Hermit Warbler.

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: San Diego Date: November 1, 1925 Page Number: 2614

This morning, 9-10, I called in Mr. + Mrs. Frank Stephens at their old home, now in the heart of modern residence district, 3746 Park Blvd. I found Mr. Stephens (now 76 he told me) quite vigorous, of both mind and body, and I had a very pleasant visit with him. Among items of news was the death, of typhoid down in Mexico somewhere, a month or so ago, of Jose Maria Gallegos, who was the Mexican museum representative at Tijuana. No successor has as yet been appointed. One thing of interest Stephens showed me was a 4-foot section of a young pine trunk from portions of which the bark had been gnawed "by Porcupines". This sample Mr. Stephens got, himself, in July, 1923, one-fourth mile above the hotels at Bluff Lake, San Bernardino Mountains, in a grove of young pines many of them showing similar "sign". I examined the section (4 inches in diameter at one end, 2 1/4 inches at the other) closely, but could see none of the characteristic lower-incisor marks on either the bared wood or the adjacent bark; so I doubt it's being Porcupine work, tho Mr. Stephens is sure it is, and he very much resented my intimation otherwise. Wright M. Pierce knows more about this "evidence"; no actual specimen of Porcupine has ever been forthcoming from the San Bernardino, altho rumors of their presence there keep bobbing up.