1980 Walter D. Koenig Melanerpes formicivorus Fort Hunter Liggett, Monterey Co., Calif. (12 January) Thus, I think it's highly likely that the acorn crop—at least of the 3 commoner species here—was excellent, just as it was at Hastings. As for the 2nd aspect, what we did was to walk around and simply count the number of granaries that did/did not have acorns stored in them (plus a few which seemed to have far fewer stores than holes). I more or less arbitrarily lumped granaries that were so close together that they probably belonged to the same group (not easily done here since the density of granaries is so tremendous). The total final count was 27 granaries with lots of stores, 3 with only a few (when it looked as though there was room for lots more), and 25 that appeared to be completely empty. At least a few of these granaries were within a stone's throw of a Valley Oak whose acorn crop had been very heavy. I don't really think that this proportion of empty granaries accurately reflects the proportion of empty territories out here, but I do think that more granaries were empty than should have been if the area had been "full" of groups. I might mention that most of the granaries that did have stores were quite full—some phenomenally so (god this is good Wicker habitat!). I do think that there are some empty territories here, as suggested by the empty granaries, again just like the present situation at Hastings. Finally, we did come across several birds hawking and sitting around. It was raining most of the time, so it's hard