La Grulla - Santa Tomas Valley Floor Dec 5, 1979 A few kilometers beyond Santa Tomas a road drops sharply off from the highway to the left, down to the floor of the valley. As we started down we encountered a bunch of 50+ quail which we started after but they had a tendency to fly back up the mountain so we quit them quickly and went out in the valley in search of a more friendly bunch. But we were a helluva long time finding tem. Lots of tracks but no birds for about an hour at a half. Finally encountered a nice little covey of 45 or 50, as worked on them until noon. Took 10 birds in all, of which 3 were adults. I shot pretty well on this bunch, bagging 6 with 10 shells at losing two others down hard but apparently runners. This valley has some heavy patches of cholla cactus, so dense in places that you can't walk through. In one such area we found a mob of loafing mourning doves -- at least 100. We tried to hunt them but they simply flew to hell and gone out of there. I got one before they were gone. In the section where he hunted today there had been no grain grown this year. Some extensive stubble fields were a year old. I suspect that may be one reason we didn't find more birds. They probably moved to the valley fringes where fresh barley stubble was available. We came back to the Club for a Mexican lunch -- chiles rellenos, luchaditas, frijoles. After a nap I walked out to the point to wait the shoreline on the mudflat (very low tide). Then just the home covey of quail to feed in the lousy trees along the east bank. (west of the Club house).