182 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



a long, effusive, bubbling song, before lie went 

 back to the business of catching small insects — 

 not such small ones either — to feed his large family. 

 After I began working especially for them, I soon 

 had pictures of crows and jays calling, several 

 singing cardinals, and enough other birds to con- 

 vince anyone that birds sing with parted beaks. 



Another good wren picture was made at a six- 

 foot focus on this same platform, as the male wren 

 emerged from his house, his beak widely parted 

 on a globule from the cloaca of one of his young. 



Another picture I always have regarded as 

 rare was one I secured from the shelter of an old 

 saw-mill on the shore of Burt Lake, where it 

 narrows to the Indian River, on what is laiown in 

 northern Michigan as the "Inland Route." The 

 water of the shoreline was excellent feeding ground 

 for every kind of aquatic bird of the locality, while 

 the shelter of the mill afforded an unusual oppor- 

 tunity for work at close range. I had my camera 

 focused on a blue heron, standing motionless, as he 

 searched the surrounding water assiduously for 

 small fish, frogs, or any living thing he might fancy 

 for food. I had watched him so long that I had 

 grown slightly careless. The movements, with 

 which his beak shot down, then up, then the toss 

 he gave the frog so that he caught it headfirst 

 were so nearly instantaneous that I missed the rar- 

 est picture which might have been secured of him. 

 The snap I got shows the frog at length in the 



