ADVENTURES WITH BIRDS f)F PREY 



129 



A RAVEN GLEE CLUB SINGS LUSTILY AT MEALTIME 



The three hungry >'OunK birds, their mouths agape, wait impatiently while their wary mother and 

 her mate (right) make sure that the camera is harmless. Carrion and other food, swallowed and partly 

 digested by the old bird, is regurgitated to the young, which are fed in this way until they are able 

 to fly. The nest is made of large sticks and lined with horsehair, taken probably from dead animals 

 on which the ravens have fed (page 120). 



climbed over the cliff, while Steve, Julian, 

 and I held tightly to the rope, with our 

 feet braced against a large bowlder. In 

 our haste and ignorance, we forgot to re- 

 move the loose rocks near the rope. We 

 saw the danger only after a large rock had 

 hit Frank a glancing blow on the leg. 



In attempting to remove the rocks, we 

 loosened several others which fell the fifty 

 feet to the ledge before we could utter a 

 warning and then crashed on down the 

 eight-hundred-foot slope. We could not 

 see Frank from the top and we feared to 

 call to see whether he had been struck. We 

 were certainly relieved when we heard a 

 string of cuss words come from the ledge. 



We got our pictures and hawks without 

 further mishap and started to pull Frank 

 up, but we loosened so many rocks that we 

 decided to lower him instead. The r(jpe 

 was fifteen feet short, so we threw Frank 

 a piece of clothesline to tie to the lower 

 end. The clothesline broke when Frank 

 was ten feet from the bottom. 



This incident taught us that a cliff is 

 no place to practice trial and error methods. 

 Whether photographing from a tree or a 

 cliff, our motto now is; "Try to be careful. 

 It is not likely that you can be careless 

 more than once." 



Between trips to the duck hawk and 

 raven eyries we spent our time photograph- 



