Breeding Birds of Four Isolated Mountains in Southern California
WESTERN BIRDS Volume 24, Number 4, 1993 BREEDING BIRDS OF FOUR ISOLATED MOUNTAINS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOAN EASTON LENTZ, 433 PimientoLn., Santa Barbara,California 93108 The breedingavifaunas of FigueroaMountain and Big PineMountain in SantaBarbara County and Pine Mountain and Mount Pinos in Venturaand Kern countiesare of great ornithologicalinterest. These four mountains supportislands of coniferousforest separated by otherhabitats at lower elevations. Little information on the birds of the first three has been publishedpreviously. From 1981 to 1993, I, withthe helpof a numberof observers,censused the summer residentbirds of these four mountains,paying particular attentionto the speciesrestricted to highelevations. By comparingthese avifaunaswith each other, as well as with those of the San Gabriel,San Bernardino,and San Jacinto mountains, and the southernSierra Nevada, I hopeto addto currentknowledge of thestatus and distribution of montane birds in southern California. VEGETATIO51AND GEOGRAPHY The patternof vegetationin the surveyareas is typicalof thatfound on manysouthern California mountains. Generally, the south- and west-facing slopesof the mountainsare coveredwith chaparralor pinyon-juniper woodlandalmost to the summits.On the north-facingslopes, however, coolertemperatures and more mesic conditions support coniferous forest, which often reaches far down the mountainsides. Because the climate is arid, few creeksor streamsflow at high elevations,and most water is availablein the form of seepsor smallsprings. BothFigueroa (4528 feet, 1380 m) andBig Pine (6828 feet,2081 m) mountainsare locatedin the San RafaelRange, the southernmostof the CoastRanges (Figure 1, Norrisand Webb 1990). The San RafaelMoun- tainsare borderedby the SierraMadre, a low chaparral-coveredrange, to the northand the CuyamaValley to the northeast.The SisquocRiver drains west from the San Rafael Mountains and Sierra Madre to the Santa Maria River.To the southlies the foothillgrassland of the SantaYnez Valley.
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