44 WILD WINGS 



As we neared the island, I saw that the white birds were 

 the great Wood Ibis, technically a stork, the American repre- 

 sentative of that much-reputed bird of the Orient. Our bird 

 is likewise an imposing creature that stands nearly as high 

 as a man, clad in spotless white, save for the black extrem- 

 ities of the wings. " As for the stork, the fir trees are her 

 house." Similarly is our stork apt to choose the immense 

 cypress timber, where, in the interior of Florida, I have found 

 them nesting over one hundred feet from the ground in inac- 

 cessible security. Here it was delightful to see them upon the 

 tops of low mangroves, evidently a nesting colony. The great 

 birds rose when we were at quite a distance, and circled far 

 of^ over the swamp, together with a vagrant crew of buzzards. 

 Meanwhile we could see a few Brown Pelicans fishing in 

 the lake, and an occasional Black-crowned Xight Heron, 

 Louisiana Heron, or Anhinga with its snaky neck, fiying 

 across it. 



As we landed on the muddy islet, densely overgrown with 

 red mangroves, we heard the hoarse voices of young birds 

 beyond us, that, in almost human tones, seemed to reiterate, 

 " Get out! Get out ! '" It was not easy to transport the cameras 

 over the treacherous tract, full of deceitful mud-holes, but 

 after a struggle I arrived beneath the nests — large platforms 

 of sticks, whitewashed and stinking, about fifteen feet above 

 my head, built on the tops of the mangroves. \^ery soon I was 

 overlooking them. There were eighteen, all told, within an 

 area of a few rods, and each contained two or three young 

 birds, pure white in color, about the size of large pullets, with 

 heavy-looking bills. It was the first time in my life that I had 

 looked into a stork's nest, and happy was I in the blazing 

 Florida sun upon the mangrove-tops. 



To photograph these stork homes proved to be a problem 

 indeed. Built upon the topmost twigs of very slender trees, 



