Bohemian Warming in Southeastern California
Bohemian Waxwing in Southeastern California
On December 21, 1919, Mrs. Swarth and I were travelling between the Grand Canyon and Pasadena. At the little desert station of Danby, California, some fifty miles west of Needles, on the Santa Fe railroad, two Bohemian Waxwings (Bombycilla garrula) were seen. Although this is a sight identification, and from a train, I have no hesitancy in placing it on record, with certainty that the birds seen were Bohemian Waxwings and not the smaller Cedar Bird. The train stopped a few minutes at that point, and the birds were seen at quite close range from the observation platform. They were first noted flying past, and they lit in a cottonwood some twenty or thirty yards from the track. They were in plain sight, and their call notes were heard also. As I had but recently seen the species under most favorable conditions for observation (see p. 8O), the birds’ appearance in life was sufficiently fresh in my memory to enable me to feel certain regarding the minor differences distinguishing the Bohemian Waxwing from the Cedar Bird.
H. S. Swarth
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley, California, February 7, 1920
