1936. 95 Jan. 1-2. A good soaking rain. Jan. 3. Clear morning. Cloudy afternoon. Jan. 4. Rain. Jan. 5. Cloudy with some rain. Jan. 6. Clear a.m. colder & Cloudy p.m. Jan. 7. Cloudy. Drove to Boulder Creek and back. Very mild. At Dumbarton Bridge - 1000's of Sand- pipers, many of them Redbacks. Many hundreds of 2 Colognates seen over Sand Grebes. Black-bellied Plover - one small flock at Dunn., over 100 near Alvarado in field. No ducks. Mild at Boulder Creek - no frost. Jan. 8. Song Sparrows and Thrashers singing. Raining. Jan. 10. Left Berkeley in a drizzling rain at 8:30 for a trip to Death Valley & Boulder Dam. Rain ceased before we reached Livermore. Cloudy most of the way but very warm. Clouds very beautiful. Birds were quite abundant until we reached Modesto - Blackbirds, Meadowlarks, Shrikes, Sparrow Hawks, one Marsh Hawk, one St. Blue Heron & a buff-banded Warbler and one Am. Egret. Also large flocks of small birds which could not be identified exactly - probably Goldfinches, Linnets & Gambel Sparrows. In The towns a few English Sparrows were seen but only one sizable flock. From Modesto to about 50 miles south of Fresno, hardly a bird was seen - 1 Marsh Hawk (?), 1 Meadowlark, 1 Shrike, no flocks of any kind whatever. As we neared Bakersfield they became more numerous again. Is this due to the poisoning campaign?