CHAPTER IV 



BIRDS AND THE CAMERA 



NOWADAYS, when the camera forms a necessary 

 part of the nature-interviewer's and pleasure-seeker's 

 outfit, no creature, human or otherwise, is safe from 

 the press-the-button brigade. Nearly every person 

 who can afford one, and many who cannot, possess 

 or hope to possess a camera, and with these every 

 imaginable object, animate or inanimate, is por- 

 trayed. Comparatively few, however, of the great 

 army ever direct their energies to the photographing 

 of birds. It is difficult to account for this lack of 

 interest in such a fascinating branch of camera 

 work ; perhaps it is because so few people know or 

 care for the feathered tribes, while even those who 

 really do interest themselves in these useful mem- 

 bers of creation fear the many difficulties to be 

 met with in bird photography. Not many people 

 are possessed of a sufficient amount of patience 

 to watch quietly through the long hot hours of a 

 summer's day in the hopes of perhaps securing a 

 single photograph of a live bird. Without this 

 patience no one need hope to succeed. True, an 

 occasional " snapshot " when conditions happen to 

 be favourable may, and sometimes does, result in 

 the obtaining of a good picture, but he who would 

 interview a bird with the camera must be prepared 

 for endless disappointments; and, should weeks 



