December 7, 1940 Corvallis Corvallis City Park Mary's River Eldon and I Weather: Clear with small breeze and about 50° Flicker Golden Crown Kinglet Oregon Chickadee Rusty Song Sparrow *Gardiner Woodpecker Varied Thrush Two Mallards Ruby-crown Kinglet Chestnut-back Chickadee Winter Wren **California Purple Finch Valley Quail*** Bush Tit Seattle Wren Oregon Towhee Blackbird Robin Vesper Sparrow * I had a chance to observe this one at close range, so here is a description as I saw it: The head has 2 black stripes running from the base of the bill, through the eyes and around to the back of the head where they join. There is also a black band ging from the base of the bill to the junction of these other two stripes over the very top of the head. Also there are two band running lower down around the throat to the back of the head. All the rest of the head was white or gray white. Evidently this was a female as there was no red patch at the back of the head. There were black and white bars across the under side of the tail of the bird. Each band being about 1/4 of an inch wide. There is also a large white patch between folded wings on the back. The wings had some white spots. The call note is a singular high note. This bird was about 6 inches long. It started at the bottom of the tree and worked part way up and then flew to the bottom of the next tree. ** We came to one spot just down stream from the swimming hole where there was an Ash tree literally alive with birds. There were Kinglets, Chickadees, Bush Tits, and a larger bird: These birds were up in the top of the Ash tree eating the thousands of singed samara seeds that were left hanging there after the leaves were gone. They would pluck off a single samara and get the seed end in there bill and work it around until they had gotten the seed out and then they would drop the winged part whirling to the ground. Description: Large and stout bill. Most of them, females where of a generally light brown color with darker stripes running lengthwise on upper and lower sides of the body. Saw a few males: Had a rose-purple blotch on the top of the head above the eyes. The rest of the head and shoulders or chest were tinted with a purple color. The breast and under parts streaked, but from the legs on back there is a clear buff color. Yellowish color bill. The females looked very much like a common sparrow. *** We walked into a open glade in the woods and surprised a small band of Oregon Valley Quail. They froze and we had a good opportunity to observe these varied markings. December 13, 1940. Weather was clear and very cold (38°F) Noon. This noon I happened to look out of my 26th street window and saw a bird flying towards a tree across the street. It would fly about 3 or 4 feet straight up (or a little bit forward) and then go into a "stall", fold its wings and drop down 2 or 3 feet. It repeated this performance several times above the tree and finally came to rest in one of the uppermost branches. It stayed there for about 15 minutes. It was a Northern Red-breasted Sapsucker.