THE NIDIOLOGIST. 



55 



SPOTTED SANDPIPER ON NEST. 



PHOTOGRAPHY UNDER DIFFICUL- 

 TIES. 



The readers of the Nidiologist are 

 treated every month to beautiful reproduc- 

 tions of nesting sites or of living birds. 

 To those who have made negatives of such 

 pictures, they speak of either most fortun- 

 ate circumstances or most persistent effort. 

 It occurred to me that it might be interest- 

 ing to your readers, who have never tried 

 it, to read how a photograph of a wild bird 

 is taken. 



There are a few birds, notably the Wood- 

 cock, which are such close sitters, that it is 

 only necessary to find a nest to easily 

 secure a good picture. The sitting Wood- 

 cock will allow herself to be taken in the 

 hand and placed upon her eggs again in 

 any position desired by the artist. She, 

 however, is exceptional, and it generally 

 requires some skill and a good deal of 

 patience to photograph a living bird. You 

 can seldom find one in the open sunlight, 

 and in any other location a snap shot is 

 almost sure to be under-timed. 



On the eastern end of Oneida lyake, in 

 Central New York, is a veritable paradise 

 for birds. The land is low and sandy, 

 covered with a thick growth of scrubby 

 pine and oak, and during the months of 

 May and June filled with little stagnant 

 pools, left by the receding waters of the 

 lake and by the melting of great drifts of 

 snow, which, blown before the west winds 

 of winter over the twenty-three miles of ice, 

 are piled among the timber. These pools 



breed myriads of mosquitoes, and these mos- 

 quitoes feed small birds in great numbers. 



Into this district, one day in Jime, enter 

 your humble servant with a home-made 

 camera intent upon a picture. 



Nests are so plenty that soon I have a 

 dozen to select from. Of these, I select 

 one of the Spotted Sandpiper, placed near 

 the water, among weeds, in a little thicket 

 of scrub willows. 



I place my camera box on the ground, 

 quite near the nest, drive pegs into the 

 sand on all sides of it to keep it steady, 

 place little twigs all about it to disguise it, 

 focus on the eggs, place the plates and 

 drop shutter in position; carry a line from 

 the latter several rods away, and then re- 

 tire for half an hour. At the end of that 

 time I carefully approach the end of the 

 line, and guessing, rather than seeing that 

 the bird is on the nest, I pull the cord. 



There is a flutter of wings, a click of the 

 shutter, and I am at a loss to know which 

 took place first. 



I^eaving the camera in place, I remove 

 the plate and take it to a neighboring cot- 

 tage, where a dark room has been impro- 

 vised, and upon development, find I have 

 an under-exposed and somewhat blurred 

 picture of the nest and eggs, the bird hav- 

 ing evidently left at the movement of the 

 cord before the shutter opened. 



Trial number two is an exact repetition 

 of trial number one. 



Trial number three is more successful. 

 The bird, having probably become more 

 accustomed to the movement of the cord, 



