Page:Condor14(4).djvu/35

 July, 1912 A JOURNEY TO STAR LA:E COUNTRY AND TAHOE REGION 145 pine sapling, well concealed in a thick bunch of foliage and composed almost entirely of lodge-pole pine needles and lined with fine grasses and horsehair. This nest held four fresh eggs. Not far away the home of a Sierra Hermit Thrush was noted four feet up in a lodge-pole sapling with a set of three eggs. The nest was of rootlets, grasses and stems and lined with fine, light-colored grasses. I was interested, too, in a nest of the Western Bluebird (Sialia.mexi- cana occidentalis) which is far less abundant here than currucoides. This nest, in a dead tree trunk eight feet up, was warmly lined with woolly substances, bark strips, grasses and stems and held five eggs in which incubation had just begun. The main feature, however, of the day's work was a dainty nest of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula calendula) with nine partly incubated eggs. The nest, although only nine feet up, in a small lodge-pole, was not par- ticularly easy of access as it stood in several feet of water while a swift-running stream of icy water intervened. The pair regarded my intrusion with high dis- favor, particularly the lady of the house, who scolded continually while I re4 mained in the vicinity. Nearing Rowlands on the homeward journey a curious nesting site of the Brewer Blackbird (Euphagus cyanocephalus) was noted, the nest being placed on the edge of a grassy meadow beneath a board. It was less bulky than the tree-built structures and made of rootlets, grasses and stems, and lined with horse-hair. On May 31 a nest of the Sora (PorxaJta carolina) was found at Rowlands with the large complement of 13 eggs. Many deserted nests of the Yellow- headed Blackbird with eggs were noted, the slender reeds not being sufficiently strong and bending over with the weight into the water. Many nests of the Black Tern were observed, none containing more than three eggs. June 2 was a record day for finding nests .of the Sierra Junco, two of three and two of four eggs being found. One was built in a slanting hole in the ground, arched over by pine needles, and would have defied detection had not the parent fluttered off at my approach; while another was well hidden beneath the broad leaves of a wild sunflower. On the 3rd of June Mr. Henry W. Carriger arrived, but the only result of a strenuous half-day of joint field work was the taking of a nest of the Cali- fornia Yellow Warbler. (Dendroica aestiva brewsteri) which I had located pre- viously. This held four fresh eggs and was prettily woven to the branch of a lodge-pole pine sapling six feet up. On the following morning Mr. Carriger and I trudged some distance with a long ladder to a spot where I had observed -pair of Ruby-crowned Kingreets nest-building in one of those long, stringy, matted and twisted clumps of foliage peculiar to some lodge-pole pines. The nest was hung much like an oriole's, and after considerable manipulation we were rewarded by seeing seven eggs lying in the feathery bed of the dainty, broad-brimmed, mossy basket. Mr. Carriger found his first nest of the Wilson Phalarope (Steganopus tricolor) the following morning at Rowland's Marsh. The entry in his note book reads: "Fonr eggs; incubation one-third; nest, a small affair of marsh grass on ground in wet portion of marsh." On June 5 Carriger and I started early on one of the most important excur- sions of the season, a visit to the Star Lake Country. This lake, nestling at the foot of a rugged and lofty peak called Job's Sister, has an altitude of nearly 9000 feet and the surrounding region is rich in birdlife of the Canadian and Hudsonian zones. Mr Carriger and I confined our work principally to the broad Cold Creek Meadows which we reached about noon. En route the only