S3 Page 70

S3 Page 70

Collector: Grinnell - 1925
Location: San Jose, 2500 ft., lat. 31°
Date: Oct. 30
Page Number: 2612

volplane fully 200 yards, from the top of the bluff out onto the valley floor.
Before it took off my attention was attracted by its “growling” and snapping
its bill rapidly several times.

Broke camp and left Colnett at 12:45 for Ensenada. Now (6 p.m.) camped on
the divide (750 ft. alt. by the barometer) 3 miles west of Santo Tomas, about
25 miles short of Ensenada, having come about 60 miles over roads badly
gullied by the rains. Came thru the Agave belt continuously past San Antonio
ranch (where the dead agaves gathered in vast quantity serve as fuel for the
boilers that run the oil well machinery there) and up the Cañon Salado. But
from there on, past San Vicente to here, the flora has been of the interior
Upper Sonoran Type, much like that around San Jose. Saw many Brewer
Blackbirds around each ranch or habitation; rancho or habitation; two
Mockingbirds on the mesa near San Vicente; also two Vesper Sparrows near
the same place.

The rains have wrought a marker change in the appearance of things within
the past six weeks. Not only is the ground green, bout many of the shrubs
that were legless have now burst into brilliant green leafage. The “buckeye”
is a notable instance of this.