i8 



THE NIDIOLOGIST. 



Nesting of the Osprey. 



[BV WAI.TKR E. BRYANT. 



THE large island of Santa Margarita, 

 situated on the Pacific coast of Lower 

 California and forming the southerly 

 boundary to the spacious harbor of Magda- 

 lena Bay, is separated into two mountain- 

 ous parts by a broad plain extending from 

 the bay shore to the wide expanse of sand 

 dunes which intervene on the ocean side of 

 the island. My impression is that the plain 

 is nearly a league in length and less in 

 breadth. It is covered by the characteristic 

 vegetation of that section of the peninsula, 

 thorny bushes, cacti and the "giant cac- 

 tus" {Cereus), known by the Mexicans as 

 "Cardon." In most places the growth is 

 not heavy, and one can travel about at will, 

 while from the beach to the .sand dunes a 

 fairly good road has been cleared. At the 

 time of my first landing on the island, 

 about the middle of January, 1888, a camp 

 was established on the beach only a stone's 

 throw frona the mangrove-bordered lagoon 

 where countless man-o'-war birds were 

 nesting at that early date. [See The Nidi- 

 OLOGiST, Sept. 1893.] 



The great Cardones scattered over the 

 plain above mentioned were nesting places 

 of the Osprey, being the most available 

 sites that could be found. Nests which I 

 had previously seen in California were in 

 tall dead oaks, nearly denuded of branches^ 

 or in high redwoods. On Cerras Island, 

 lyower California, the nests are built upon 

 the ground, on the edge of the bluff, above 

 the beach. In this journal for January of 

 this year appeared an illustration of an 

 Osprey 's nest in a decaying ash, about 

 thirty feet from the ground, but the large 

 nest illustrated here was not more than 

 half tliat height, the absence of a unit of 

 measurement making the appearance decep- 

 tive. 



While going from the beach, along the 

 roadway, to a small ranch by the sand 

 unes, I counted over a dozen nests, .som e 



of them evidently of many seasons' accu- 

 mulation, and upon five of the nests I 

 could .see the Ospreys, sometimes both 

 birds. This was on January 27, but while 

 they had evidently prepared to occupy cer- 

 tain nests, I could not decide that they had 

 comenced laying. All of the nests were 

 too high to reach from the ground, none of 

 them being less than ten feet from the 

 ground to the surface of the nest, and the 

 stiff spines on the corrugated arms and 

 trunk of a Cardon would check the most 

 enthusiastic collector. Climbing to the 

 nests being impracticable, I constructed a 

 light "chicken ladder," such as is seen in 

 the country where the poultry roost in 

 trees, out of a single strip about fifteen feet 

 long, with short cross pieces for steps, and 

 props at each end to keep it from twisting 

 around when in position. It was a success, 

 ful makeshift and, although built as lightly 

 as the requirements would allow, it proved 

 with the addition of gun and ammunition 

 quite a burden at the close of a few miles' 

 walk in the hot sunshine. On January 25 

 I visited a few of the most promising nests, 

 frome one of which I took two fresh eggs 

 and afterward, on February 18, I found one 

 incubated ^^^ in the same nest, probably 

 the last of a set of three. 



It was on that day that I thought the in- 

 dications warranted a tour of the plain with 

 the ladder, but even then nests upon 

 which one or both birds had been seen al- 

 most daily for a month were without eggs, 

 and I did not have another opportunty to 

 make the rounds of the dozen or more 

 nests. I believe if I had had a very long 

 pole with a small mirror at the end, nearly 

 every one of the nests could have been in- 

 spected and the fruitless toil with the lad- 

 der saved. The three eggs which were 

 secured were quite handsomely marked and 

 varied, but not as much prized as the neg- 

 ative showing the situation of the nest, the 

 character of the country and the distant 

 hills. The nest was the usual bulky pile of 

 sticks with a lining of coarse sea weeds. 



