Second Occurrence of the Yakutat Song Sparrow in California
Second Occurrence of the Yakutat Song Sparrow in California
On September 19, 1915, Mr. Laurence M. Huey took a specimen of Melospiza melodia caurina Ridgway, at Fortuna, Humboldt County, California. The bird is a female (no. C 281, Coll. Donald R. Dickey), and becomes, I believe, the second recorded instance of the capture within the state of this rare winter visitant to the northwest coast of California.
The bird was taken on a brushy hillside in the immediate vicinity of Fortuna, and at a distance, therefore, of several miles from the sea. In this connection, it is interesting to note the wide departure from normal in the associational behavior exhibited during migration by this individual. In its breeding range and on its winter ground the bird is essentially a “beach-comber”. This has been clearly indicated by the single winter capture heretofore recorded for California (Grinnell, Condor, XII, 1910, p. 174), and by the Oregon experience of Shelton (Condor, XVII, 1915, p. 60), and the Alaskan notes from Admiralty Island given by H. S. Swarth (Condor, XIV, 1912, p. 73). Here, on the contrary, it was found far inland in the characteristic habitat of the host of Townsend Fox Sparrows that were coming in at the time from the north, and in an association quite distinct from that of the beach. Dr. Joseph Grinnell and Mr. H. S. Swarth have kindly compared the specimen with the birds from more northern stations that are now in their care at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley, California.
D. R. Dickey
Pasadena, California, December 22, 1921
