44 
WILD WINGS 
As we neared the island, I saw that the white birds were 
the great Wood Ibis, technically a stork, the American repre¬ 
sentative of that much-reputed bird of the Orient. Our bird 
is likewise an imposing creature that stands nearly as high 
as a man, clad in spotless white, save for the black extrem¬ 
ities of the wings. “ As for the stork, the fir trees are her 
house.” Similarly is our stork apt to choose the immense 
cypress timber, where, in the interior of Florida, I have found 
them nesting over one hundred feet from the ground in inac¬ 
cessible security. Here it was delightful to see them upon the 
tops of low mangroves, evidently a nesting colony. The great 
birds rose when we were at cjuite a distance, and circled far 
off over the swamp, together with a vagrant crew of buzzards. 
Meanwhile we could see a few Brown Pelicans fishing in 
the lake, and an occasional Black-crowned Night Heron, 
Louisiana Heron, or Anhinga with its snaky neck. Hying 
across it. 
As we landed on the muddy islet, densely overgrown with 
red mangroves, we heard the hoarse voices of young birds 
beyond us, that, in almost human tones, seemed to reiterate, 
“ Get out! Get out! ” It was not easy to transport the cameras 
over the treacherous tract, full of deceitful mud-holes, but 
after a struggle I arrived beneath the nests — large j^latforms 
of sticks, whitewashed and stinking, about fifteen feet above 
my head, built on the tops of the mangroves. Verv soon I was 
overlooking them. There were eighteen, all told, within an 
area of a few rods, and each contained two or three young 
birds, pure white in color, about the size of large pullets, with 
heavy-looking bills. It was the first time in my life that I had 
looked into a stork’s nest, and happy was I in the blazing 
Florida sun upon the mangrove-tops. 
To photograph these stork homes proved to be a problem 
indeed. Built upon the topmost twigs of very slender trees, 
