California Pine Grosbeak in Mono County, and Other Notes
California Pine Grosbeak in Mono County, and Other Notes
While descending a small branch valley of Mammoth Pass, southern Mono County, California, July 31, 1914, I flushed a pair of California Pine Grosbeaks (Pinicola enucleator californica) that was feeding on the ground beside a stream at an altitude of about 9500 feet. The brightly colored male flew into a pine tree, where I shot him, but the female disappeared far up the mountain side. On August 6, while armed only with a light fly-rod, I spent five minutes watching another male that was feeding on the tender tips of a small spruce near me, at, I should say, an elevation of 9000 feet. As far as I am aware, this subspecies has never before been taken so far south.
While passing the dairy corral of a neighbor near Covina, Los Angeles County, April 29, 1915, a male Dwarf Cowbird (Molothrus ater obscurus) flew up on the fence within fifteen feet of me and remained several minutes before returning to the ground farther away. By the time I had fetched my gun, he had disappeared. My chance for observing him was too good for there to have been a mistake in identity.
I placed two bales of hay in the shade of a large orange tree six weeks ago. Upon removing these June 18 I found that a pair of Valley Quail (Lophortyx californica vallicola) had taken possession of them. The bales were one on top of the other and merely in the shade of the tree without any dense protection of surrounding growth such as these birds usually demand, but there was a deep hollow formed in the straw of the top bale some four feet above the ground, and in this were three fresh eggs.
The White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus) is now so rare in our southland that it seems advisable to record one which I saw June 2, 1914, some two miles from El Monte, Los Angeles County. I was hunting in a grassy marsh all day and came quite close to the bird several times, once as near as a hundred yards. I hunted diligently for a nest or young, but I believe it likely that this was merely a lone individual. About a week later A. van Rossem visited this spot and noted what was undoubtedly the same bird.
A. Brazier Howell
Covina, California
