180 



ORNITHOLOGIST 



[Yol. 14-lS^o. 12 



to tie up, and go down tlie trail from the house 

 thai led to the rookery, about a mile. We had 

 started out intending to get back for dinner, 

 not having taken any lunch. How the inner 

 man growled before we even came in sight of 

 our haven of joy! We tramped and tramped 

 to the end of the trail and out to the bare top 

 of a hill, lugging camera and tripods (this was 

 before the little detective had come to hand), 

 but no sign of hundreds and hundreds of nests. 

 Would get no egg or views and back for dinner 

 this day. I crawled back to the shade of a 

 live oak on the trail, and sent out my brother 

 collector on a survey. He came back in five 

 minutes, saying he had struck them sure! We 

 started again, but soon came to a line of brush 

 on the canyon side, where, far below, lay the 

 wanted goal. Nothing must do but get there, 

 Eli; so down through bush and brier, with 

 plenty of poison oak put in here and there for 

 kind of a warning notice "No tre.spass here." 

 After going into several squirrel-holes, and 

 getting the brush out of my hair, still hanging 

 to the camera-box, we dropi>e(l ourselves down 

 under the shade of a California maple. Hark! 

 what was tliat crash out of the tree ? On 

 looking up, lo and behold a (Jreat Blue Heron, 

 and not over twenty-five feet from us a nest, 

 and another farther out. "By Gum" and 

 there's another, as the old Cornwall man 

 says; but, like the ft>x antl sour grapes, ''so 

 near and yet so far."' Below could be seen the 

 gleaming silver of a cool stream in the bottom 

 of the canyon. How our burning thri>ats aclied 

 for it, but we did not dare go down there for 

 fear of not getting out again. Such is the luck 

 of a collector's hunt (m a blind trail, far from 

 home and dinner, l.:W i'.m., and no eggs either. 

 I had made up my mind I was not going 

 to leave that place if I never got an egg or 

 another dinner for a week, until I had a nest 

 on every plate in my case. That was easier 

 said than done, as the hill had a slope of 45° 

 straight down to the creek bottom. I got some 

 limbs cut out of the way, tripods set, and by 

 this time the Herons began to come back and 

 perch on the edges of their great bulkily built 

 nests of sticks and branches. One now and 

 then could be seen craning his long neck, the 

 better to see what was going on below by those 

 odd-looking coons. I had to hang on to one of my 

 tripod legs to keep from taking a header down 

 the hill. It was now or never; so snap went the 

 trigger, and I had one of the nests to look at in 

 after days, a reminder of the pleasant times 

 spent afield after birds and their homes. 

 These plates proved fine ones on developing. 



On another trip made there with my fiiend 

 Mr. Bryant, we got down to the rookery by the 

 right trail to the canyon bottom. Four expo- 

 sures were made : one at what I call the old 

 Plum-pudding tree, a tall, bare, white syca- 

 more, with twenty- two nests scattered through 

 it; from the hillside eggs could be seen in the 

 nests right and left, from two to four in each, 

 with some of their downy young. 



On a small rifle being shot off all the herons 

 took to wing, flying oft" down the canyon. I 

 got a fine snap at them on one plate. Another 

 plate shows the herons standing on some of 

 the nests, and others on the great limbs of the 

 live oaks. Several sets of eggs were taken, of 

 two, three, and four, also downy chicks, and 

 what odd-looking birds they were when put 

 together on the ground side of the creek, 

 where we sat to eat our lunch. Pretty soon we 

 had a lot of fun : the largest gray-haired chick 

 was at a set-to with his brothers, fighting with 

 their large black bills like young roosters. The 

 large one soon knocked out all his companions. 



The young herons all have long, grayish, 

 hair-like down, quite long on the neck and 

 head; bill and feet black, eyes grayish 

 white. Tlieir notes are coarse and squawk- 

 like. All these nests were from 2.5 to 100 feet 

 up, mostly in the sycamore trees, a few scat- 

 tered in the live oaks and California maples. 

 There must have been upwards of 250 nests in 

 this heron rookery, and it has been occupied 

 year after year for no one knows how long. 



The ground was well whitewashed under the 

 trees inhabited, and a strong smell of guano 

 greeted the collector wherever he stood. Many 

 small fish-bones could be seen lying al)out the 

 ground. 



A good detective camera taking a plate 4'^x 

 (iYi, cabinet size, I find makes the best views, 

 and allows to cut down in printing where a 

 plate is not entirely perfect. Some prefer a 

 4x5 foi- birds and nests. 



It is wonderful what can be done in the line 

 of taking birds in flight or otherwise. (I be- 

 lieve the first honor in this line of photography 

 is given to Mr. E. Moybridge, a Californian, 

 whom I have had the pleasure to meet; would 

 advise the readers of these notes to see article 

 on his works, Century Magazine, July, 1887, 

 page 356. In the article a series of ten cuts 

 are given of Golden Eagle in flight, showing 

 the true position of the wings in motion.) With 

 the quick eye of the lens and the sensitive 

 plate. Gulls, Hawks, and Ducks on the wing, 

 well as Cormorants, Hert)ns, and all small birds 

 on their nests, can be caught in their natural 



