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Additional Records of the Western Mockingbird in Oregon

Authors
Clarence A. Sooter
Journal
Condor
Volume
43
Issue
3 (May-June)
Year
1941
Pages
157
Section
From Field and Study
Online Text

Additional Records of the Western Mockingbird in Oregon

On July 25, 1940, while the author and Mr. Forrest Carpenter were assisting in taking the monthly bird census on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon, a Western Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) was observed at the south end of “Big Sagebrush Field” in unit 10. The following day Mr. John C. Scbarff observed what probably was the same individual near the place where it was noted the day before.

In the course of the next monthly census, on August 23, another mocker was seen at “Grain Camp Dam” in unit 6 by the author and Mr. R. M. Tullar. Also, Mr. Groves of the refuge staff reported that the day before a mockingbird (evidently the same bird) lit on a hay rack he was preparing to load in the grain field just east of the dam.

Previous to these records a group of ornithologists from La Grande, Oregon, while visiting the refuge in the latter part of May, reported seeing a Western Mockingbird in Burns (Hyde, Condor, 42, 1940:305). Gabrielson and Jewett (Birds of Oregon, 1940:462) cite five records from the Steens Mountains and the Blitzen Valley, and recorded the bird as rare.

Clarence A. Sooter

Fish and Wildlife Service, Burns, Oregon, December 26, 1940

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