Photographing a Ruffed Grouse 



By JOHN WOODCOCK. Minnedosa. Man. 

 With a photograph by the author 



ON May 24, 1908, I took my camera, a 4 x 5 Pony Premo, with an ordi- 

 nary cheap lens, and set out for a hkilT which I knew to be a favorite 

 resort of Ruffed Grouse. The morning had been dark and gloomy with 

 rain at intervals, but about 3 p.m. the clouds cleared away and the sun shone out, 

 though not quite so brightly as was desirable for snapshot photography. 



As soon as I reached the woods I heard a Grouse drumming, and soon came 

 upon him standing on a large deca}'ed log. Walking slowly up, I seated myself 

 about thirty yards away and awaited developments. For about five minutes he 

 hardly mo\'ed, then suddenly sat down on the log, and, with tail expanded and 

 head thrust forward, began to flap his wings, slowly at first, but after three or 

 four strokes moving them so rapidly as to make them almost invisible. The 

 Vikings were held so as to beat forward and not down toward the log. 



As a bank of dark clouds was coming up from the west, I had no time to lose 

 so fastened the camera, with ball-and-socket clamp, to a tree about nine feet from 

 the log, and attaching twenty-five feet of tubing with a bicycle pump on one end, 

 and setting the shutter at one-half a second, with diaphragm at U. S. 8, I went 

 away for a time to give the bird a chance to return. 



In about half an hour I returned, to find the Grouse again drumming. I 

 managed to creep u\) to the tubing, and just as he was preparing to drum again 

 I worked the pum]j, but the click of the shutter did not disturb him at all. 



