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Notes from Placer County

Ernest Adams

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I note a query you make in the last CONDOR regarding the nesting of the Western Martin (Progne subis hesperia). The only places I have met them in this county--nesting--were at the pottery in Lincoln and at the Court House at Auburn. There appear to be but a few pairs at each place. I was told that from three to eight pairs nested at Lincoln for about twenty years, but succeeding years do not see them increasing in numbers, altho the nests were not disturbed.

Mr. Ray's "correspondence" (CONDOR XI, page 141) is all right, but does not affect us here; but we have the dove. Hunters have been slaughtering the doves for two weeks and still I know of several nests today (August 1) on my place which contain young birds. A large number of doves here lay their first set of eggs on the ground in grain fields, and many are destroyed by cats and more by the mowing machine. Frequently the dove will remain on the nest until the knives kill her. The dove seems to hold its own in numbers, but it seems a pity to begin killing so early--at least. Each year the various gun clubs make a bigger spread over the first dove shoot.

Clipper Gap, California.

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