Transcribing the field notes of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Collector: Grinnell-1925 Location: Mineral, 4800 ft. Date: June 19 Page Number: 2481

3:00 p.m. - Watched a White-headed Woodpecker drink. It flew down from a yellow pine to some shallow running water in an open road-side, alighted in horizontal position on the ground, and dipped it's bill 6 times, after each dip raising its billed skyward at an angle of fully 80 degrees from the horizontal. The bird then flew to a prostrate log, and foraged horizontally along its lower curvature.

5:00 p.m. - Mrs. G found a Mountain Quail's nest yesterday with two eggs in it, and we showed it to Dixon. This was close to a flycatcher's nest which Dixon is photographing; and he found that the third egg was laid this morning between 8 and 9. At 4 this afternoon he reported all the eggs gone. I came over to see if I could learn the cause of the loss. Examination disclosed all three eggs there, but covered up all but a small part of the surface of one egg, by the fine ceanothus leaf (dry) litter! Had the quail done this intentionally, like a grebe? I doubt it; so I have left the eggs in their hollow uncovered, so they will be in sight to "lay to" tomorrow. This is merely my theory! The "nest" is merely a depression in the dry loose litter on top of a prostrate rotting log, overspread from one side with ceanothus cordulatus stems, twiggery and green leafage. The nest is 480 mm. above the ground on either side of the log. We have seen the quail within 50 yards of the site several times.

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: Mineral, 4800 ft. Date: June 28 Page Number: 2501

7:45 a.m. - At Mountain Quail's nest (see p. 2481). The fourth egg was laid on the 20th at a few minutes of 2:30 p.m.; for I was "collecting" a set of Wright Flycatchers less than 60 feet away from 3:00 to 3:40. When I came at 3:00, there were 3 eggs in the quail's nest. In spite of my proximity and and my have [sic] shot twice (in getting the two flycatchers) the quail came to the nest and unobserved and was on at 3:30, sitting closely. A little later Dixon visited the site and saw 4 eggs, the bird being gone. The circumstance recited on p. 2481, of the eggs being covered (when there were three) was evidently adventitious; nothing of the sort has been repeated. Mrs. G has visited the nest daily, and found one egg to have been added each day, laid about 3 or 4 in the afternoon when visits were so timed as to determine this point. On the 25th there were 8 eggs, and the next day the bird was on, sitting, and was not disturbed. Each visit since, she has been on and not flushed - until now, when there are nine eggs. Evidently one was laid the day the bird began to sit. She is very "broody", flattened out in circular form on the nest, head drawn in, only the tail projecting from the "circle". She stayed on until a branch of ceanothus just above her was lifted, my hand scarcely a foot away, when she sprang off to the ground and disappeared, with noise other than the flit

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: Mineral Date: June 28 Page Number: 2507

him, are quantities of castillejas, to which some peripatetic [female symbol] resorts every now and then. As she appears, the male launches skyward, to indulge in from 2 to 5 sky-dives down nearly to the ground past her. At the lowest portion of this precipitate parabola, he gives a curious "bzt" sound, like a bee held down, ^^{just once}. How the sound is made, whether by wings or syrinx I do not know. Another [male symbol] Calliope Hummer has his main stand on the tipmost splinter of the stub in which the Mountain Chickadee's brood was raised. Another has his stand divided between the growing tips of 3 closely adjacent young yellow pines slightly overtopping a sea of snow-brush. Another perches chiefly on one of the highest twigs of a service-berry thicket in an opening among firs. In the case of the Calliope Hummingbird, where "the house is divided," census designation is not as clearly determined as in other birds; but I suppose that the ^^{location of the} nest, alone, should be counted.

4:15 p.m. - Intent. The Mountain Quail's eggs weighed, in grams, as follows: 11.6, 12.2, 12.3, 13.2, 12.2, 12.0, 12.5, 12.1, 11.4; average of the nine, 12.2 g. In only two could I detect the slightest trace of incubation, that is, of blood (which is really rather advanced, embryonically speaking!).

6270 Cassin Vireo [female symbol] ad. 15.5 g. Shot yesterday, with set 2/4 (see p. 2500).

Two Red-Tailed Hawks circled near camp today,

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: Turner Mt., 6300 ft. Date: July 3 Page Number: 2518

chaparral there); I looked for sign and listened for Conies in the rocks along the rim of the cirque, but unsuccessfully, tho there was plenty of sign of Bushy-Tailed Wood Rats among the rocks.

Down the trail, within the red fir belt (Canadian Zone), which does not go much below the 5500 foot contour, on the north side of the mountain, noted, both going and coming: Sierra Grouse (a [male symbol] flushed from near the top of a red fir spire and, with set wings, shot down the steep north slope); Mt. Quail (one heard in chaparral); Solitaire (one in full song, and another seen foraging among logs and about bases of trees); Western Tanager (2 or more); Canada Nuthatch (one); Ruby-crowned Kinglet (2, in song); Robin (2, singing); Audubon Warbler (one, singing); Hammond Flycatcher (2, in red firs); Warbling Vireo (one, singing in patch of white alders).

The trail up Turner Mt. from the south edge of Battle Creek Meadows, to about the 5500-foot contour, goes thru [sic] typical transition. A conspicuous floral element there, not seen on the Mineral side of the Meadows, is the Nuttall dogwood, now getting past blooming. There is a little black oak, lots of Ceanothus prostratus low down and of C. cordulatus farther up; conifers: Douglas spruce, yellow pine, incense cedar, sugar pine, and white fir. Noted the following species of birds ^^{in this belt,} going up 12:45 to 3:00 p.m., or coming down, 7 to 8:15 p.m.: Hermit Warbler,

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: Mineral Date: July 29 Page Number: 2536

6299 Calaveras Warbler [female symbol] ju.* 8.6g. at 5500 ft. 6300 [Calaveras] [Warbler] [female symbol] im.* 8.3g. [at] [5500] [ft.] 6301 Sierra Creeper [male symbol] ad.** 30.9g. testes - [testes illustration] [at] [5500] [ft.] 6302 Mariposa Fox Sparrow [male symbol] ad.* 30.9g. testes - [testes illustration] [at] [5500] [ft.] 6303 Mountain Quail [male symbol] ju. 48.6 g. In rat-baited trap ^^{in willows} near camp. 6304 Tolmie Warbler [female symbol] ad.*** 9.4g. At 5500 ft. 6305 Cassin Vireo [female symbol] ad.** 14.9g. [at] [5500] [ft.] 6306 Sierra Hermit Thrush** [female symbol] ad. 23.6g. [at] [5500] [ft.] 6307 Green-Tailed Towhee [male symbol] ad.* testes - [testes illustration] 26.7g. [at] [5500] [ft.]

*Shot in arctostaphylos patula bush.

6308 Thomomys monticola [male symbol] ju. 71.5g. 192x67x25.5x6.5. 6309 [Thomomys] [monticola ] [female symbol] ju. 47.5g. 166x56x24.5x6.

July 30

Saw a single Nighthawk last evening, and saw it swoop and boom once.

6310 Thomomys monticola [female symbol] ju. 51.5g. 174x58x25x7. 6311 Sorex v. amoenus (?) 4.6g. 100x37x12x3. (In formalin.) 6312 [Sorex] [v.] [amoenus ] (?) 4.2g. 105x41x12.5x3.5.

These two shrews in mouse traps set in rank grass under willows in the "bog." 6313 Thomomys monticola [male symbol] ju. 71g. 180x60x27x8. 6314 [Thomomys] [monticola] [male symbol] 76g. 188x67x27.5x8.5.

July 31 Took a 4-hour census sheet on, and in the vicinity of, Battle Creek Meadows this forenoon, as per accompanying census sheet. Mrs. G. pencil-checked on cardboard, results, 31