HUNTING BIRDS WITH A CAMERA 



18c 



are better than chicken eggs. The white 

 of the egg is not white at all but a trans- 

 parent blue of gelatin consistency and is 

 very edible. 



NO POETRY IN A SEA-lilRD RETREAT 



There is not much poetry on the island. 

 A nature lover who might fall into ecsta- 

 sies over a song bird in the woods would 

 receive a severe jolt the minute he came 

 near an ear-splitting Murre colony or got 

 the faintest whiff of the atmosphere. 



We could not climb along the ledges 

 an hour without risking our lives in a 

 dozen places. While camped on the rock, 

 we wore rubber-soled shoes, so we could 

 hang or cling to the surface with some 

 degree of safety. Even with these, we 

 often found our toenails instinctively 

 trying to drive through the soles of our 

 shoes to get a better hold. 



Up and down the ridge of the rock was 

 a large colony of Brandt Cormorants, 

 birds commonly called Shags. Their nests 

 were scattered a few feet apart for over 

 100 yards. The nests were built up in 

 funeral-pyre fashion by the debris of past 

 generations, grass and seaweeds, iish 

 bones, and the disgorged remains of ban- 

 fjuets. In every nest were four or five 

 eggs of skim-milk bluish tint, over which 

 it looked as if an amateur whitewasher 

 had smeared a chalky surface. 



When I first looked at a motley crowd 

 of half -grown Cormorants, I thought Na- 

 ture had surely done her best to make 

 something ugly and ridiculous. They 

 stand around with their mouths open and 

 pant like dogs after the chase on a hot 

 day. Their throats are limp and flabby 

 and shake at every breath. Their bodies 

 are propped up by a pair of legs with a 

 spread of toes as large as a medium-sized 

 pancake. 



The youngsters have no very clear no- 

 tion of what feet are for, at least on land. 

 If you go near, they go hobbling off like 

 boys in a sack race. 



It is not uncommon for young birds to 

 fall over the ledges of the cliffs, where the 

 population is so crowded. Late one after- 

 noon, while preparing our usual meal at 

 our camp, which was partly protected 

 from above by the overhanging rock, we 

 were startled by an avalanche of loose 

 gravel. We jumped for cover as a half- 

 grown Cormorant came flopping down 



and landed with a thud in a heap at our 

 feet. He came from one of the nests 

 about 75 feet above. 



Such a fall would have broken every 

 bone in the body of an ordinary creature. 

 The newcomer got up a little dazed, 

 twisted his neck in a few grotescjue 

 curves, as if just waking up; then he 

 climbed over our pots and pans to the 

 end of a board which served as our dining 

 table, crept up close to our fire, drew in 

 his long neck, and went sound asleep. 



The California jMurre is by far the 

 commonest bird on the rocks. It crowds 

 together in immense colonies. The bird 

 lays a single egg in the open, with no sign 

 of a nest, not even a bit of grass or a 

 stick to keep it from rolling. Its peculiar 

 shape helps to keep it in place, even on 

 the bare, sloping rock, and if it is acci- 

 dentally started down grade by the move- 

 ment of a bird, it does not roll straight, 

 but swings around like a top on its own 

 axis and comes to a standstill a little 

 lower down. 



E-\CII BIRD KNOWS HER OWN EGG 



My first impression as I looked at the 

 colony of Murres crowded together on 

 the shelf of rock was that the nesting 

 must be communal. All about lay eggs so 

 close together that one could hardly step 

 without crushing them. Thousands of 

 eggs, and yet no two alike ! The com- 

 bined effect was that of a whole spring 

 flower garden of tints. Some were of a 

 pure white ground color, others had vari- 

 ous washes of gray or brown, and still 

 others showed a dozen shades of blue. 



Upon this ground was spread, in 

 most instances, an elaborate pattern of 

 splotches of all sizes and shapes, some- 

 times thicker on the large end and some- 

 times on the small end — splotches of 

 brown, gray, and velvety black. Often 

 they were marked all over. Some were 

 daubed as with a brush ; others scratched 

 from end to end, as with a pen, and 

 finished off with wild flourishes and 

 scrawls. How, among so many, could 

 any bird recognize her own ? 



How, in the vast throng of individuals, 

 did she even find her own mate? To my 

 dull human sight they all looked alike. I 

 was unable to pick out a single bird that 

 I could recognize if I turned away and 

 looked back a moment later. And as 



