BIRDS IN THE BUSH 



67 



mother again, and all together rapidly 

 retreat from the scene of danger. They 

 will repeat these manoeuvres again and 

 again if you repeat your tactics. 



One may become unexpectedly in- 

 timate with nesting birds. Two years 

 ago, in the midst of my cautious pre- 

 parations to photograph a waxwing 

 that 1 found gathering nesting ma- 

 terial, the bird alighted on my shoul- 

 der. At another time a spotted sand- 

 piper perched on my camera which 

 had just been focused on her nest. To 

 be able to stroke or to feed a bird as 

 she sits on the nest is another occa- 

 sional experience. 



Another source of interest is the odd 

 and unusual places in which nests are 

 sometimes found. I have seen a 

 house wren's nest inside of the hang- 



A NEST OF THE YELLOW WARBLER. 



ing nest of a Baltimore oriole ; a robin's 

 nest flat on the ground of a closely 

 cropped pasture ; a phoebe's on the 



RED-TAILED HAWK (AT THE RIGHT) AND 

 RED-SHOULDERED HAWK. 



See letter from Theodore Marsh. 



blade of an oar in a boathouse ; a 

 crow's in an apple tree and within easy 

 reach from the ground ; a colony of 

 bank swallows nesting in a heap of 

 sawdust ; purple grackles nesting in a 

 bird box, and another colony in the 

 cat-tails with red-winged blackbirds. I 

 have found two nests of the Baltimore 

 oriole in a spruce tree. I have never 

 even heard of another of this species- 

 so placed. These were side by side,, 

 good evidence that the same individual 

 birds return to the same locality year 

 after year. 



Note the calls of young birds. There 

 is in general a squeaky or squally char- 

 acter about these calls, yet one learns 

 to detect many specific differences and 

 degrees of differences, and he finds 

 that their cries are no more alike than 

 are the cries of human babies. A num- 



WHEN THE EVENING SUN IS MERGED INTO TWILIGHT. 



