162 TRAVELS OF A NATURALIST 



July 5. 



The 5th of July, Friday, was showery. We were out 

 all day, starting about 10 a.m., tramping through the 

 forest which surrounds Ijma Ozero (Lake Ijrna), and 

 Nicholai rowed a boat round, keeping alongside our line 

 of march. We had good sport. 



Though in search of Hazel Grouse Raibchik not 

 one did we see, but we got better birds. First Alston 

 shot a Three-toed Woodpecker, and then Piottuch and 

 Carl Craemers got three fine Northern or Siberian Jays. 

 We were dreadfully punished by mosquitoes, but what we 

 shot fully rewarded us. Alston and I each shot a Northern 

 Jay, while I also obtained a Buzzard, a Willow Grouse 

 (Kouropatki), and a Rustic Bunting. Further round the 

 lake Alston and Nicholai each shot a fine male Waxwing. 

 We failed to find the nests, though we think there can 

 be little doubt that they breed here. Nicholai also shot a 

 female Wigeon and caught a young one, and Piottuch 

 shot two Little Buntings. 



Alston, in his diary, noted that the Northern Jays are 

 very lively birds, queer-looking, with their big bushy 

 heads and fluffy plumage, which makes them seem much 

 larger than they really are. 



Most of the birds were in the more open marshy parts 

 of the woods. 



At the head of the lake, and about a hundred yards from 

 its shore, was an Osprey's nest, which we visited. It 

 was an immense structure on the very top of a huge larch- 

 tree, which could not be climbed without irons, if even 

 then. The old birds were absent, but Vassili was sure 

 that it was inhabited, although there was not much 

 appearance of this, there being no remains of food round 

 the base of the tree. It has been regularly inhabited, as 

 Vassili assures us, for the last ten years, and the birds 

 were seen at the spot about a month ago. 



