84 



BIRD STUDIES WITH A CAMERA 



securing, with the aid of a telephoto, a picture 40 of 

 two adult birds feeding well out of gunshot, and 

 with the assistance of climbers I reached the upper 

 branches of a tree some seventy feet in height con- 

 taining five nests whose contents ranged from eggs 

 to nearly grown young. With the ball-and-socket 



' ; ' V- ' clamp the camera was 



fastened to favoring 

 limbs, and after three 

 hours' work several 

 satisfactory pictures of 

 young in the nest and 

 on the adjoining branch- 

 es were secured. 41 " 43 Al- 

 though well able to de- 

 fend themselves, the 

 young assumed no such 

 threatening attitudes as 

 the American Bittern 

 strikes when alarmed, 

 from which perhaps we 

 may argue that they are 

 happily ignorant of the 

 dangers which beset 

 their ground-nesting re- 

 lative. 



As the sun crept up- 

 ward and the last fishers 

 returned, the calls of both old and young birds were 

 heard less and less often, and by ten o'clock night 

 had fallen on the rookery and the birds were all 

 resting quietly. Four o'clock in the afternoon was 

 evidently early morning, and at this hour the birds 



43. Young Night Herons on branche 

 near nest, seventy feet from th 

 ground. 



