ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 



15 



A Wreath and a Nest 



Early in May of this 

 year one of the care- 

 takers of the Riverside 

 Cemetery at Sterling in- 

 formed me that there 

 was a nest on a tomb- 

 stone where he had been 

 working. I immediately 

 scented a good subject 

 fov a photograph and 

 found the nest. It had 

 been made in an artifi- 

 cial wreath which hung 

 on the monument about 

 four feet from the 

 ground, and contained 

 three eggs in plain sight 

 of anyone within a 

 hundred feet or more, 

 It was very easy at that 

 time to take a picture 

 of the nest and eggs. 



The eggs were more 

 than half brooded, for 

 in a few days two of 

 them had hatched. It 

 must have been three or 

 four days before the 

 third egg hatched, so 

 tile. 



■ 



Photo by G. P. Perry 



long that I thought it was not fer- 

 The next time I visited the nest there were three nestlings, 



and I was unable to see any dif- 

 ference in them in size. 



To get a picture of the birds 

 feeding the young required sev- 

 eral visits and much patience. I 

 placed the camera on a tripod 

 near the nest and focussed it on 

 the nestlings, removing the 

 slide, setting the shutter on 8 di- 

 aphragm 1/25 second, and con- 

 necting the release with a rub- 

 ber bulb about fifty feet long. 

 The ordinary camera bulb is not 

 strong enough to release the 

 shutter. Then I went to a consid- 

 erable distance and watched for 

 photo by g. p. Perry the return of the robins. 



