The Nesting of the Whip-poor-will 



237 



Lady Whip-poor-will. She fluttered up lightly from between my feet and 

 flopped along the ground, trying vainly to draw me away from her eggs. The 

 situation of the "nest" was much the same as the one found the year previous, 

 a light second-growth woods and lots of wind-blown chestnut leaves. There 

 was, however, a considerable difference in the coloration of the bird herself 

 from the one whose eggs I had found before. The Whip-poor-will of a 

 year ago resembled a piece of fire-charred wood, being very dark-colored, 

 while the bird whose nest I had just found was merely a piece of the leaves 

 she nested on, light chestnut, brown and buff. This second bird was also very 

 fearless, allowing me to touch her back and making it necessary for me to 



A SITTING WHIP-POOR-WILL 



shove her gently off the young when I wanted a glimpse of them. Perhaps 

 the sleepy temperament of all nocturnal birds during our daytime had some- 

 thing to do with her fearless attitude. It was of this bird that I secured my 

 best pictures. She was a very easy subject, and, though I scored a good number 

 of failures, they were mainly due to my own carelessness. I was using a 3A 

 Kodak with portrait lens and films, so that all my focusing had to be done 

 by measurement, a very unsatisfactory method and productive of many 

 failures. Though handicapped by this equipment, enough exposures were 

 made to insure some good negatives. The Kodak was set up on a tripod, the 

 focus obtained by measurement from the lens to the eggs, and a thread or 

 cord attached to the trigger of the shutter. After an hour or so, the bird would 

 return, and, if on approaching the situation I could see through my field-glass 

 that she was back on the eggs, a pull of the string released the shutter. Then, 

 bar accidents in the darkroom or miscalculation in focus, the bird was mine, 



