i68 Bird - Lore 



shuUer release and led to a place behind a tree, about 25 feet from the nest. 

 I then sat down behind the tree and waited. It was not long before I had my 

 first picture. The stop used was /"/6.3, and the exposure was one-fifth of a 

 second. I took three pictures, all with the same stop and the same exposure. 



The second nest studied was that of the Hermit Thrush. This bird builds 

 its nest on the ground and usually lays four greenish blue eggs which are un- 

 spotted. The nest, in this instance, was placed in a bare hummock in the 

 'forest primeval.' It had birch bark on the outside and was lined on the 

 inside with thread-like roots and some dead grass. Two or three undersized 

 ferns protected it from the sun. In the nest there were three eggs of the char- 

 acteristic color. A picture of the nest was taken with the use of the portrait- 

 lens. The stop used was /"/32, and the exposure twenty seconds. 



One afternoon, about a week later, I visited the nest again. In it there were 

 three young Thrushes about two days old. The afternoon was cloudy and was 

 not suited for bird-photography in the deep forest, but I set the camera about 

 28 inches from the nest, so that the birds would become accustomed to it. The 

 birds did not seem to mind the camera at all. I took two pictures, but they 

 were underexposed. The following day was windy, with clouds and sunshine 

 in the morning; in the afternoon the sky was a perfect blue. The birds had 

 become thoroughly acquainted with the camera, and the mother bird even 

 permitted the operator to be in full view at times while she fed her young. 

 However, the bird approached the nest with caution. On the return from a 

 food-quest, it would first land on the horizontal branch of a hemlock sapling, 

 then fly to a log, then to a low stub, and finally come to the nest. It had the 

 habit of stopping and looking whenever it detected a slight movement of the 

 cord. While the bird was in this attitude, the picture was taken. 



IIKRMIT THRUSH AT NEST 



