130 KNOWING BIRDS THROUGH STORIES 



food. In fact, it is true of birds as of people that bad 

 habits of one kind are quite sure to develop equally bad 

 habits of another kind. Occasionally as a child I used to 

 find buzzard feathers in the spring when they were molt- 

 ing and scattering their great quills here and there over 

 the fields. It was easy to recognize such feathers be- 

 cause of their stench. They smell like the food the buz- 

 zard eats. 



"Not so many years ago I found my first buzzard's nest. 

 It was on the ground, as all buzzards* nests are, at the 

 end of a log. Buzzards do not always build at the end of 

 a log, however. If it is hollow they may build even two 

 or three feet inside, or they may build at the base of a 

 stump or a bush. I have known them to build on a dry 

 tussock in a swamp so that they could be handy to the 

 young cranes and herons that were near by. In fact, buz- 

 zards have a great preference for nesting in the midst of a 

 colony of nesting herons. There they feed on the eggs and 

 joung herons without having to fly in search of food. 

 I The nest I found contained two eggs about the size of the 

 egga of a common turkey, but they were a dull greenish" 

 -white, and the shell looked thick and rough and was 

 splashed here and there with a few brown spots. After 

 these eggs hatched an occasional hour of watching en- 

 abled me to see the mother feed her young. This she 

 did by disgorging her food into the young birds' mouths. 

 When a buzzard's nest is disturbed the old birds will often 

 fly overhead and attempt to disgorge food on the dis- 

 turber, knowing that the smell will be sufficient to drive 

 any man from the vicinity. 



There are a number of varieties of buzzards, but the 

 common turkey buzzard is most common all over the 



