Barn Owls Nesting in New York City 



227 



our cameras, lir, at a sii,mal I'lom us. was lo slowly ascend the wooden lailder 

 which leads to the top of the pi^eoii-cote. 



We remo\ed our shoes, strai)ped our cameras lo our backs, and soon were 

 perched in our lofty station, ready for action. The signal was fi;iven, our man 

 disappeared through one of the doors which opens into the barn from the 

 cow-yard, and jjresently we could hear him making his way up the ladder. 

 It was a monu'nt of great i'\i)eclalion and intense inward excitement. The 

 hoods of our cameras wi're i)resst'd hard against our faces, ancl the focus was 



IT W..\S THROUGH IT 



Kit I ^ I" ALLY CAME' 



ke])! sharp on the uppermost hole of the loft, for it was through this opening 

 1 had learned that the bird usually came. Suddenly there was a shuftling 

 sound at the top of the cote, a white form |)ulled its way through the pigeon- 

 hole, and a magnificent creature s])rang out mU) space and winged silently 

 away to seek the shelter of some trees on the o])posite side of the road. But, 

 with the first wing-stroke of the bird, there had sounded the "reports" of two 

 focal-plane shutters, and, as we relaxed and shifted plates, our words of con- 

 gratulation were mutual. 



At just this moment, however, there began a commotion in the pigeon- 

 loft that immediately changed our smiles to scowls of a])prehension. First 

 there was a sculilling and scratching, intermingled with some inaudible mutter- 

 ings from the farm-hand, and then there began a series of pitiful, wailing 

 cries which one could easily ha\-e believed were issuing from a human throat, 

 but which we knew to be coming from that of a terrified Barn Owl. 



