A Northern Winter Station for the Band-Tailed Pigeon
A Northern Winter Station for the Band-tailed Pigeon
On the south side of the Pitt River, about two miles from its junction with the Sacramento is a certain hillside to which Band-tailed Pigeons (Columba fasciata) regularly resort during the winter season. I am accustomed to pass that point several times each year, on my way from Pitt, the Southern Pacific junction, to Wyndam, on the line of the Sacramento Valley and Eastern. The motormen and conductors told me that they had frequently seen flocks of pigeons there, and on one occasion I was fortunate enough to see a small flock myself, as we passed by. On February 22, 1913, the motorman stated that he had the previous week seen a flock of two or three hundred. It has seemed to me remarkable that these flocks should come yearly to the same hillside, where they sometimes linger for many days, and further remarkable that they are not observed elsewhere in the run of twelve or fifteen miles from Pitt to Bully Hill.
