Transcribing the field notes of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: Red Bluff to ]]Mineral]] Date: July 6 Page Number: 2522

way from the edge of the yellow pines (3300 ft., about) to within the miles of Red Bluff. There is a great deal of "speeding" on this road, stretches of which are straight and finely surfaced. As a result, numbers of Jack Rabbits and Douglas Ground Squirrels are run down; and these "remains" form a quite dependable food source for the Turkey Vultures, which evidently patrol the highway regularly for these victims of the auto. The mammal bodies are, of course, as a rule conspicuous on the roadways, much more so than in the chaparral or on the lava "plains" elsewhere. This is a new manner of draft on the mammalian population; a carefully taken census over a given, average stretch of road-way, would be significant in this connection. There may have been compensation already, however; for example, last winter, I was told by one of the road men that he and others kept steel traps going, for coyotes, ^^bob-cats, and foxes, the pelts of which are so valuable. I suppose that means a let-up on the draft of carnivores upon those vegetarians.

Our trip down and back was unfavorable to observing birds along the way. Mostly, when we were stopping, nothing was to be heard; the quiet season has arrived. The hearing of call-notes of Slender-billed Nuthatches

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: To Mineral Date: July 25 Page Number: 2528

Last spec. no. 6292

Stu and I in the machine left Berkeley at 4 yesterday afternoon, slept on the "badlands" midnight to 4:45 a.m., left Red Bluff at 6:15 a.m. and reached the family camp above Mineral at 9:45 a.m. Notable along the highway within 12 miles below Red Bluff were the Yellow-billed Magpies, 2 to 6 or 8 in sight at once and very tame, on the ground or roadside fences with autos passing close by. At Dale's on Paine Creek, although 7:30 a.m., hardly any birds now singing; a Wood Pewee was drawling, and a Chat singing fitfully, more so than normally. Within a mile above Dale's, a Roadrunner sped ahead of us a little ways, then made off among the boulders. From Dale's clean up to the first yellow pines (at 3200 about) I was impressed by the numbers of Douglas Ground Squirrels and Jack Rabbits; numbers of partly grown young of each species were seen. Below (west of) Battle Creek Meadows along the highway up the north wall of the canyon about the bridge, I saw at least 8 Callospermophilus, one of them not over 1/3 grown. An adult was seen at the roadside close to the north side of the Meadows. This species seems to come down with the fir belt from the high mountain immediately to the north. Here at camp I am impressed by the quietness of the birdlife. Once in a while there is the broken song of a Fox Sparrow; and the Chickadee's "tee-tee, too, too" is heard; but