WHAT I HAVE DONE WITH BIRDS 



the woods in their homes. When birds are bound to their nests and 

 young by the brooding fever, especially after the eggs have quick- 

 ened to life, it is possible to cultivate, by the use of unlimited pa- 

 tience and bird sense, the closest intimacy with them and to get 

 almost any pose or expression you can imagine. 



In living out their lives, birds know anger, greed, jealousy, 

 fear and love, and they have their playtimes. In my field ex- 

 periences I once snapped a Chicken-hawk with a perfect expres- 

 sion of anger on his face, because a movement of mine disturbed 

 him at a feast set to lure him within range of my camera. No 

 miser ever presented a more perfect picture of greed than I fre- 

 quently caught on the face of a young Black Vulture to which it 

 was my daily custom to carry food. Every day in field work one 

 can see a male bird attack another male, who comes fooling around 

 his nest and mate, and make the feathers fly. Did humanity ever 

 present a specimen scared more than this Sheilpoke when he dis- 

 covered himself between a high embankment and the camera, and 

 just for a second hesitated in which direction to fly? Sometimes 

 by holding food at unexpected angles young birds can be coaxed 

 into the most astonishing attitudes and expressions. 



I use four cameras suited to every branch of field work, and 

 a small wagon-load of long hose, ladders, waders and other field 

 paraphernalia. 



Backgrounds never should be employed, as the use of them 

 ruins a field study in two ways. At one stroke they destroy at- 

 mosphere and depth of focus. 



Nature's background, for any nest or bird, is one of ever 

 shifting light and shade, and this forms the atmosphere without 

 which no picture is a success. Nature's background is one of deep 

 shadow, formed by dark interstices among the leaves, dense thick- 

 ets and the earth peeping through; and high lights formed by 



