Transcribing the field notes of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Collector: Grinnell - 1925 Location: Lassen Section (Mineral) Date: June 13-14, 1925 Page Number: 2462

forenoon nest-hunting. Found several, to be reported upon later, in suitable locations for Dixon to photograph them. Fished in the afternoon, securing 7 Eastern Brook and 1 Rainbow Trout. Deer tracks abundant thru the willow bogs, forming trails; many fresh tracks along the streams, as also up on the dry slopes among the Ceanothus cordulatus mats, where one was jumped by Mrs. G at 10 a.m. Saw a Spotted Sandpiper on a scanty patch of gravel at the edge of one of the numerous meadow channels of Battle Creek - grassy meadows on willow jungles everywhere else. A Tree Swallow in full song flew overhead - the only swallow I have seen here. A curious association of birds was evidently established for birding in the willow bog, as follows: Russet-backed Thrush, Lincoln Sparrow, Song Sparrow (subsp.?), Traill Flycatcher, Yellow Warbler (subsp.), Golden-Pileolated Warbler, Western Warbling Vireo and Lazuli Bunting. Western Robins were, of course, in the open meadows, and plenty of Sierra Juncos along the edges of both the meadows and the willow bogs, where these are bordered by lodgepole pines. June 14 Mrs. G. and I out hunting birds' nests all the forenoon, finding only two, both unfinished. This seems exactly the right season for finding most small birds' nests; few are sitting yet.

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).

Author: Grinnell-1925 Location: Mineral, 4800 ft. Date: June 19 Page Number: 2480

Later: found the Traill Flycatcher's nest some 7 feet up in a crotch of slender willow stem in the midst of an isolated willow clump in the meadow - just in process of construction. In a tract of old lodge pole pines a little farther along, a crowd of birds was distraught over something, tho I failed to find what the threatening danger was. The crowd included: Juncos, a pair of Robins, a Lincoln Sparrow, a Pigmy Nuthatch (the first I have seen in the Lassen "section"), a Hammond (or Wright) Flycatcher, several Chipping Sparrows, and a pair of Audubon Warblers. Nearby was a (female) White-headed Woodpecker.

As to mammals: winter earthcores of Thomomys monticola occur in places where the ground is well-drained at the sides of meadows but not out in them. The common chipmunk is Eutamias amoenus, about logs overgrown with snowbushes, but they are very quiet now; two visit camp, but so far are shy. A (female) Eutamias senex was trapped in a neighbor's camp yesterday morning at 5 o'clock. Last evening just before sundown, Dixon shot an old male jack-rabbit (Lepus c. californicus) in a tract of sparse snowbush. Mrs. G. has seen another partly grown one in the same vicinity. This must be the extreme easternmost limit of this subspecies in the "section". Also, Mrs. G. and Dixon have both seen individuals of the snow-shoe rabbit (Lepus w. klamathensis).

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: 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,