FRIENDS IN FEATHERS 



have guessed it. My window on the second floor of our stopping- 

 place overlooked the tree-tops and gave me a view of a wide 

 stretch of the lake, the river creeping away in the distance, the 

 gleaming trunks of birch and spiral tops of cedars lifting above 

 an impenetrable tangle of interlocking trees and bushes. 



Every morning a large Eagle with a golden head, either 

 fishing or preying on water birds, hung above the lake, and 

 how my guide and I did hunt for the nest of that bird ! We never 

 found it, but in our search we located, in a big hollow tree behind 

 our hotel, a family that repaid our disappointment. If 

 you never saw Strix pratincola in her chosen location, busy 

 keeping house, then you have missed one of the rarest sights of 

 birdland. \Ve named her "Monkey -face," buffoon that she 

 was, the minute we caught sight of her, blinkingly peering from 

 her front door to learn if it were too early to go hunting and sadly 

 shaking her low-hung head, as if all the woes of birdland rested 

 heavily on her shoulders. Her face w r as heart-shaped, sharply 

 outlined with several rows of crisp up-standing brown feathers 

 and covered with white feathers lightly tinged with the pale ash 

 and lavender which proved her a last year's bird. Her eyes were 

 small, for an Owl, and slightly oblong. Her beak and mouth 

 were almost hidden with long silky down. Her breast was paler 

 than her face and touched here and there with tiny black feath- 

 ers. On the top of her head began a beautiful light tan colour 

 that took on strength as it spread over her back, wings and tail. 

 A-top her head and across her shoulders she was thickly sprinkled 

 with tiny black feathers tipped with white. Her primaries and 

 secondaries were lightly barred with brown, but her tertiary and 

 shoulder feathers were solid tan, while each seemed to end with 

 this peculiar tipping of black and white. She had four strong 

 toes, and her legs were bare to the first joint. Later we saw her 

 mate, and he closely resembled her. All the difference we could 



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