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Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
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Transcription
June John
1992
Journal
Grey Ranch, 30 miles S. of Cimarras, Hidalgo Co., New Mexico
June 6-7 manager of this Nature Conservancy property, early the morning of June 6.
(cont) As 07:15 I met Daroff Beth, having first looked for and found lesser goldfinches at well-watered ranches N. of Grey Ranch headquarters. I was
after lunch to record goldfinches in a variety of habitats in a localized geographic area. The Beth was leading a work party that morning to do some trail maintenance work on the trail to Cistern Saddle in the High Curries Mountains. He took us up an ungraded dirt road on the west side of the mountains to the trailhead near Black Bill Canyon. En route,
we passed a string of moderate sized oaks near cattle tanks, then being several goldfinches there. I walked Black Bill Canyon from 09:30 to 12:45.
There's a spring about ½ way up running well. The canyon forks several hundred yards above the spring, and the fork draining from the N. has evergreen a decent run of water. A series of oaks mixed with a few junipers
and a massivity of dense shrubs along the very bottom of the canyon characterized the lower/middle parts of Black Bill Canyon; the upper parts
of the canyon is more heavily vegetated with mixed, closed-canopy woodland on the north fork and just quite closed canopy woodland on the south fork.
Both forks had a few pines admixed with the oaks. After leaving Black Bill Canyon, I ascended the trail to Cistern Saddle, just S. of Injilillo Peak.
The trail mostly goes through chaparral, but traverses greater slopes below and goes through the burned remains of pine forest higher up. Here
I met the work crew & Beth resting on one on the saddle, with Beth giving a talk on the local geography & recent land use history. From Cistern Saddle
I walked a steep ridge going W., the N. face of which had a very nice stand of Douglas firs and pines - big trees. I then walked back toward the saddle and then SSE to a rocky peak - the Continental Divide. At 16:15, I began a descent of Aubin Creek (the north one - there are 2 Aubin