EARLY AUTUMN BIRDS IN YOSEMITE VALLEY
By JOSEPH MAILLIARD
This year (1917) it was the writer’s pleasant fortune to pass six weeks amid the peace and beauty of the wonderful Yosemite—peaceful because past the season of turmoil of the falling waters—always beautiful and wondrous. It is true, the present writer had but just returned from a long and painful journey to the very portals of that unknown: collecting ground from which no ornithologist has ever brought back notes; his steps were slow and feeble and his limits much restricted, both geographically and topographically. But he was able to pass at least a part of each and every day in active search for feathered friends, and in setting down the names of the ones that proved to be ‘‘among those present’’, while at no hour were both eye and ear totally oblivious. These six weeks of observation cxtended from August 18 to September 29.
As the Yosemite Valley is such an interesting locality, and as but little seems to have been written upon its bird life save in a more or less incidental or casual way—and that principally of the spring or early summer time—an account of some of the birds steadily looked for and noted during a fairly long ‘period ‘in the early fall should be of some value. It must be borne in mind, however, that the following notes apply only to the ‘‘floor’’ of the valley, which extends from a couple of miles below (west of) Yosemite Village to the Happy Isles and up Tenaya Canyon as far as Mirror Lake; the latter is but a hundred feet or so above the floor proper, not enough difference in elevation to cut any figure, and connected with it by a comparatively gentle slope.
A mere list of the birds would likely prove unattractive to a majority of our readers. Yet a list has its uses as a means of recording the presence of ecrtain birds in definite localities at certain times; it is not only of assistance to the student of bird migration but is of value, as well, to persons who may cover the ground in the future, and of interest to those who have been over it in the past. For these reasons a list will be found at the end of this article, giving those birds noted that are not mentioned in the lists of Yosemite birds to which the writer has access. These are as follows:
1893. Emerson, W. 0. Random Bird-notes from Merced Big Trees and Yosemite Valley. Zoe, iv, July, 1893, pp. 176-182.
1904. Widmann, O. Yosemite Valley Birds, Auk, xxi, January, 1904, pp. 66-73;
1911. Grinnell, J. Early Summer Birds in Yosemite Valley. Sierra Club Bulletin, viii, June, 1911, pp. 118-124.
There are two or three other short articles about Yosemite birds but hardly to be called lists, and about every variety of bird touched upon is included in the three papers named.
So many people are familiar with the Yosemite Valley that it seems unnecessary to describe it here at any length; but for the benefit of those who have not had the opportunity to visit the spot it may suffice to say that it is a part of the valley of the Merced River, up whose narrow canyon for the greater part of its 79 miles a railroad parallels the stream. The grade is so compara.tively gentle, in spite of the hilly country through which the river flows, that the track bed is never more than a few yards, or at most a few rods, from the water. At the terminus of the railway the canyon becomes more rugged and the grade stiffens, while the stream is broken into short cataracts and low falls, continuing this way, while a highway takes the place of the railroad, for about
