dent may hear Gulls and Cormorants with one ear and Pileated Woodpeckers and Varied Thrushes with the other. And in this region of the Douglas fir and the long-fingered Sitka spruce, birds that in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains are encountered only when one has climbed to altitudes well up among the thousands are here found at sea level—birds such as Crested Jays, Olive-sided Flycatchers, Rufous Hummingbirds, Sooty Grouse, and Nuttall Sparrows.
The Nuttall Sparrows, whose half brothers the White-crowns we had found on their breeding grounds in the high Sierra of California and from 11,000 to 11,600 feet in the Rockies of New Mexico, were abundant at sea level on Tillamook Bay. In the fishing village of Garibaldi, in June, 1914, they were as familiar as Chipping Sparrows, catching insects along the sidewalks with little regard for passers-by. Across the bay at Bay Ocean—named literally from its two shores—the Nuttall Sparrows sang from the tips of the wind-dwarfed bushes covering the face of the bluff actually overlooking the Pacific. Their song, rich, grave, and uplifted, went well with the strong wind from over the sea, with the wide expanse of ocean, and its horizon line of sky. Below them, while Gulls flew slowly by, their shadows east on the sands of the shore and lines of black forms winged their way silently on toward the rocky islets beyond, from out in the ocean the white-maned sea horses came trooping in, rank on rank, down the length of the shore.
After severe ocean storms Fulmars and other rare sea birds are found on the beaches, and along the sand-spit beyond Bay Ocean many stray water fowl were seen. Not many miles down the coast, in Netart's Bay, stand the well known picturesque Three Arch Rocks now held by the government as a Bird Reserve for the preservation of their remarkable colonies of water fowl. Moving pictures of these Petrels, Puffins, Gulls, and the myriad Murres that may now nest in security on their native rocks have been taken by Mr. Finley for thee educational Work of the Oregon Fish and Game Commission; and Dallas Lore Sharp in his delightful book, "Where Rolls the Oregon," tells of a night spent on the sea-bound rocks among their restless populace.
In Tillamook Bay there are no rocks large enough to house bird colonies, and in June the only common birds seen about Garibaldi were Gulls and Cormorants. At low tide at the wharf, where a pair of Kingfishers sometimes came for small fry, diving in the zigzagging reflection of the piles, gray-backed Western Gulls and their confreres gathered familiarly, pluming themselves on the sunlit piles or standing idly on the shore where the fishing boats lay at anchor, and streamers of sun-illumined seaweed floated below the surface.
The birds made themselves so much at home that the fishermen had to protect their clams and crab boxes from them. One of the men before realizing the necessity had dug a sack of clams and, not wanting to stop to wash and put them in his boat, threw them down-on shore, hurrying away to dig another sack full. While he was gone the Gulls came and cleaned out the whole pile, opening the shells and cleaning them so expertly that not a particle of meat was left. As the man remarked philosophically, "That learnt me not to dump them down that way, where they can get a holt on them." Though the Gulls open the blue clam shells without trouble, they cannot open the cockles, the fisherman said, and have to resort to the same expedient that Ravens sometimes do, carrying the shells up into the air from fifty to a hundred feet and dropping them so that they break open when they strike the
