328 WILD WINGS 



My next visit to the owl's nest was on the sixth of April, 

 this time with my wife. The thaw was well under way, and 

 the condition of the mountain roads something dreadful. The 

 owl was on her nest as before. My purpose now was to set 

 the camera near the nest and make the exposures from a blind 

 with a thread just as she alighted, upon her return. She 

 allowed me to climb the same tree as before, but flew just as. 

 I reached the place for the camera, when I called to my com- 

 panion. On the edge of the nest was part of a rabbit, and 

 snuggled down deep in the middle was a heap of white down, 

 the owl's young. 



While setting the camera, I was unlucky enough to tip my 

 carrying-case too far over, and all my plate-holders went 

 scaling down upon the carpet of dead leaves and sticks forty 

 feet below. My feelings may be imagined as I resigned 

 myself to the thought of having had the day's hard drive for 

 nothing. I felt wonderfully better when it was announced 

 that only one of the plate-holders was broken, and that the 

 plates in the rest seemed to be sound. Lowering my thread, 

 one of the holders was fastened on, which I then drew up and 

 inserted in the camera. The latter was duly focused on the 

 nest, and I then attached the thread to the shutter, set for 

 an exposure, dropped the spool end to the ground, and 

 descended. 



The place that I selected for our ambush was a thick clump 

 of green mountain laurel, about a hundred yards from the 

 nest. To this spot I carefully laid out the line of thread, made 

 a dry seat of bark and overcoats, and then began the vigil, 

 hardly moving my eyes from the nest, which I could see 

 through an opening in the leaves. For quite a while not a 

 sound broke the stillness. Then a pair of Downy Woodpeckers 

 began to tap on a tree, and, coming near us, to go through 

 their mating antics. Soon after this a Red-shouldered Hawk 



