GEEAT BLUE HERON 81 



its powerful wings and then, with beautifully curved neck 

 and extended rudder-like legs, flew away. 



It is indeed a rare opportunity for the bird photog- 

 rapher to have such good luck as to have a full-grown 

 Blue Heron pose for its picture within thirty feet of the 

 camera. On looking for the source of attraction I dis- 

 covered, within ten feet of the dead tree, a large open- 

 work nest, and sitting in it a full-grown young Big Blue 

 Heron, fully feathered, but with weak legs and untried 

 wings. To secure a good picture of the young in the top 

 of the wind-blown mangrove, surrounded, as it was, with 

 green leaves, was impossible. I decided to climb the tree 

 and bring the bird to the ground, picture it there and 

 return it to its perch. 



I climbed the fresh guano-frescoed tree to within 

 reach of the bird, but I soon found that a four-inch bill 

 projected two feet with the power and rapidity of an 

 arrow was something to be reckoned with, when holding 

 to a waving tree with one hand and reaching for a long 

 shinbone of a young Great Blue Heron with the other. 



I persisted in my efforts but each time I thought I 

 could secure a hold the young bird climbed a little farther 

 out on the limb, until I could go no farther; then down 

 the tree I climbed, or slid, and up another I went. Each 

 time the bird kept beyond my reach. I finally secured a 

 ten-foot pole to which I fastened a loop of soft twine, 

 and by this method I was able to bring the young bird to 

 the ground without injury and photograph it. It fought 

 to the last trench and I returned it to the perch tempera- 

 mentally unconquered, but photographed. 



While on a trip to the Laguna de la Madre, near 

 Corpus Christi, I heard of a Big Blue Heron breeding 

 rookery a few miles back in shore. (Fig. 26.) Taking 

 my bird tent, two cameras, tripod and field glasses, I 

 struck out to work my way to the place. That part of 

 the Texas gulf shoreline had been under the awful tidal 

 wave of two years before. Driftwood and sea-weed were 

 piled everywhere on the ground and in the mesquite trees, 

 many of which had been killed by the salt water. Dead 

 mesquite trees are just about as unyielding as barbed 

 wire entanglements. Add to this many bunches of cacti 

 with the probability of a Texas diamond-backed rattle- 



