Collector: Grinnell - 1925
Location: Mt. Lassen
Date: Aug. 1
Page Number: 2539
In a steeply sloping meadow at about 8000 feet, exactly where I
found them last year, was a pair of White-
crowned Sparrows. One of them was perched on the
bend-over tip of a small hemlock, giving the metallic
alarm note all the time we were within hearing;
I saw at least one young in the vegetation below
the trail. No singing now. A pair of Goshawks,
one, yelping loudly, following the other to light in
the upper branchwork of a red fir on the side of a high ridge.
Here art Lake Helen, the past half hour (now 9:30),
have noted: Crossbill (a flock of 14 trailed across
the ravine above me and alighted in the tops of
hemlocks, with usual "chupping"); Solitaire (I heard two,
giving the "creak" call.); Junco (one nearby in lower
foliage of a hemlock); Nutcracker (at least 6 have
come into view, investigating me, with many weird
caws and whines, passing on shortly); Mt. Chickadees
(I hear a family in the hemlocks above me).
11:45 a.m. - Dick (?) and I are lunching in the upportmost
wind-flattened trees on the south hog-back of Lassen - one a
level with Broke-off, hence 9500 ft. alt.; slope steep,
sliding pummice. [sic] The uppermost trees are white-bark
pine, tho some hemlocks come nearly as far. There
are little thickets of white-flowered spires among
the rocks near me - otherwise no "chaparral." There
are many retreating snowpatches about the base
of the peak, and two big masses on the north
side of the peak itself. The only birds I have
EN