Volume 2, number 3 of Western Birds, published 1971
No thorough summary of the California status of the Northern Waterthrush Seiurus noveboracensis and the Louisiana Waterthrush S. motacilla has been published since 1944 (Grinnell and Miller). Since then the status of the Louisiana Waterthrush has not changed, there still being only one record for the state.
On 9 October 1957 David B. Marshall (1959) collected a male Black-throated Blue Warbler Dendroica caerulescens at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Harney County, Oregon. The bird was taken from the group of trees at the refuge headquarters, and it represented the first Oregon record. Eugene Kridler (Kridler and Marshall, 1962) collected a second male from the same group of trees on 27 September 1960. Eugene Kridler (1965) banded a male at Malheur refuge headquarters on 24 October 1961 and recaptured it two days later in the same area. He also observed another male at headquarters on 2, 3 and 4 May 1963.
At approximately 10:00 hours on 4 June 1969 an adult White-eyed Vireo Vireo griseus was found in a mist net near the Monterey Cypress tree in the yard of the coast guard living quarters on Southeast Farallon Island, San Francisco County, California. John Smail examined, measured, and banded this bird. Its weight was 10.9 grams, having only a trace of fat visible beneath the skin.
On 5 September 1970, at about 11:00 a.m., while checking for birds on the grounds of Deep Springs College in eastern California, Mike Ward and I discovered a brightly plumaged Prothonotary Warbler Prothonotaria citrea. The weather was cool, clear, and there was a very strong northerly wind blowing.
In southern California, Red Phalaropes Phalaropus fulicarius are fairly common fall migrants, although their abundance varies from year to year. They are most often seen on the open ocean, but they occasionally occur near shore, and in some years numbers appear on coastal ponds.
Common Ravens Corvus corax are familiar roadside birds in much of the southwestern United States. I counted ravens during nearly 5500 miles of travel through the Mohave Desert of southern Nevada (Clark County) and adjacent California (San Bernardino County) in 1967–1969. Observations were limited to areas below 4500 feet in Lower Sonoran desert away from major waterways and irrigated land. Data were divided into four time periods (table 1) and into those obtained along major routes and those along lightly used roads.
On 24 February 1971 Jim Fairchild briefly glimpsed a Pyrrhuloxia Cardinalis sinuata feeding on the ground at Weise Spring Station about 8 miles west of Westmorland, Imperial County, California. He managed to see that the bird was a large grayish finch with a red crest, some red on the face and breast, and having a short stout yellowish bill. Unfortunately, a passing vehicle flushed the bird, and it was not relocated in the following hour of searching.
In the normal scheme of things swifts fly high above the ground in search of various arthropods, mostly insects, which are carried aloft. They also utilize several less typical foraging tactics on some occasions. These would include sweeping up against forest trees (Collins, 1968; Fischer, 1958) or dropping helicopter-fashion down through the foliage (George, 1971) to gather food items, as well as low level foraging flights over ground or water. The latter tactic is frequently utilized during particularly cold and/or stormy weather when few flying insects are available (Lack and Owen, 1955).
On 6 February 1971 we were observing waterfowl in the Dune Lakes region 20 miles southwest of San Luis Obispo, California. A group of Mallards Anas platyrhynchos was resting in some willows Salix lasiolepis growing on the banks of one of the lakes (this lake of approximately 55 acres was also surrounded by tules Scirpus acutus). Another group of Mallards was swimming, courting, and bathing in the water near the edge of the lake. After bathing, four males and two females ascended some of the willow branches projecting over the water.
On 4 September 1971 we discovered a Ruff, Philomachus pugnax, at Crockett’s Lake, near the Keystone ferry landing on Whidbey Island, Washington. The bird was associating with a Dunlin Erolia alpina in fading breeding plumage. Both were part of a large mixed-species assemblage of shorebirds that were feeding on the mud flats that border this tidal lagoon. The Ruff remained at Crockett’s Lake until at least 19 September, during which time it was studied carefully by many other observers, including Dennis R. Paulson, Edmund T. Stiles, and Terence R. Wahl. The following description is adapted from notes taken at the time of our initial observation.
The list in California Birds (A Checklist of the Birds of California, Calif. Birds, 1:4-28, 1970) follows Mayer and Short (Publications of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, 9:66, 1970) in suggesting that Pygmy and Brown-headed Nuthatches may be the same species. While the data presented by Norris (Univ. Calif. Publ. Zool., 56:119-300, 1958) could be interpreted this way, the two have different call notes.