HUNTING BIRDS WITH CAMERA 



Taking from my pocket a crisp two-dollar bill, I 

 bestowed it upon the modest youth, who hardly thought 

 that he could rightfully earn so easily a day's wages. 

 Then he departed, leaving me alone with the bird. 

 The day was April 18th, one of the last cold days of a 

 vigorous and hard-dying winter. With the mercury 

 below forty degrees, dark and cloudy, a cold wind 

 raging, and occasional snow squalls, it might not seem 

 a very favorable time for photographing birds. But I 

 dared not wait. By to-morrow she might easily have 

 hatched and led away her nimble young. To-night a 

 wildcat, fox, raccoon, or skunk might discover her and 

 end my hopes and plans. So I went right to work. 

 Dark as it was, there was time enough for exposures, 

 for this bird would keep as still as the towering hills 

 before me. 



Setting up the camera on the tripod, I went to work 

 taking pictures of her, at first from a little distance, so 

 as to make sure of some result, in case she should fly, 

 but presently as near as anyone could wish, the lens 

 being within a yard of her. During the two hours J 

 was at it, the only motion she made was to wink once 

 when a pellet of sleet struck her on her unprotected 

 eyeball. 



By this time I had taken nine pictures, from different 

 positions, and I might have continued all day, had not 

 my foot cracked a dry twig close to her head. This was 

 too much even for her steady nerves, and away she 

 darted, not fluttering off as though w^ounded, like the 



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