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A Least Bittern Portrait 



BY E. G. TABOR 



{Sfe Frontispiece) 



N the niorninf< of May 27, 1897. equipped with an 

 extra supply of patience and a 5x7' Premo B' 

 camera fitted with rapid rectilinear lens, my plate- 

 i holders filled with unexposed plates, and accom- 

 panied by my wife, who has been a partner in 

 all of my successful trips, I started for Otter 

 Lake. Cayuga County, N. Y. 



It was a beautiful morning, with not a breath 

 of air stirring (by the way, this is the hardest 

 of all things to control, and is an absolute necessity if you are to 

 make fine, clear-cut negatives of birds and their natural siuTOund- 

 ings), and tlie lake looked like a mirror. It took but a minute to 

 get the large, flat-bottomed row-boat ready for the start, and we 

 w^ere soon gliding along, an oar's-length from shore, scanning every 

 tree, bush, and bunch of rushes, in search of nests, those of the 

 Red-winged Blackbird being very plenty and placed both in bushes 

 or rushes in about etjual numbers. A pair of Kingbirds had selected 

 as the place for their summer home, a large, low willow limb which 

 projected over the water : a peep into the nest revealed three eggs, 

 common, yet so beautiful in their bed of wool and feathers. 



Our next finds were several nests of a pair of Long-billed Marsh 

 Wrens, which looked more like mouse-nests than anything else I 

 have in mind. As we could return to tliese later, if unable to find 

 anything better, we had not yet exposed a single jilate, reserving 

 them for a rare or unusual find. 



We were in search of nests of the Least Bittern, and as we were 

 passing that part of the shore where they always nested, we soon 

 located a nest, but as it only contained one egg, another nest must 

 be found. A male Least Bittern flew up a short distance ahead of 

 us and ' dropped in ' back of the bushes. We rowed down to the 

 place from which he flushed, and standing up in the boat looked 

 around, and not more than a boat's-length ahead, we espied a 

 female sitting on a nest. I pushed the boat very carefully to within 

 a couple of feet of the nest, and prepared to make an exposure. 

 The camera was set to focus on an object 34 inches from cap of 

 lens, and I moved it back and forth until the focus was perfect, 

 the diaphragm was closed to / 16. and an instantaneous exposure 

 with speed at -^' was made. 



As most of my operations, preparatory to making the exposure, 

 were of necessity carried on within three feet of the bird on the nest, 



(39) 



