134 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



dragonflies in the air and eat them while on 

 the wing. 



After getting our still pictures, we started 

 taking movies of a more suitable nest, 

 located on a low, swampy peninsula. Our 

 blind was a brown mosquito netting camou- 

 flaged with leaves and branches. It served 

 to hide us from the hawks, but not from 

 the millions of mosquitoes, black flies, and 

 "no-see-'ems." 



FULL OF MOSQUITO POISON 



We camped a whole week in the mos- 

 quito-infested swamps near the pigeon hawk 

 nest. We fought mosquitoes all night, only 

 to rise with the sun, enter our blind swarm- 

 ing with insects, and fight them again. 



We laugh now to think of those sleepless 

 nights and those hours of misery in the 

 blind, but at the time we were consider- 

 ably worried over our swollen ears and neck 

 glands. We did not know they were caused 

 by the large amount of mosquito poison in- 

 jected into our systems. Instead, we 

 visioned a number of terrible diseases. 



We had found one place where photog- 

 raphy was not fun. Once in the blind, al- 

 though dressed in heavy clothes, with a mos- 

 quito netting over our heads and an insect 

 gun in our hands, we were eaten alive. We 

 sprayed dope, slapped mosquitoes, cussed 

 the whole insect class, and did everything 

 but keep still. The pigeon hawks paid 

 little attention to the slapping and mum- 

 bling within, so we got our movies for the 

 Biological Survey and they turned out fine. 



HIT ON THE HEAD BY AN OSPEEY 



Last summer we went to an island off the 

 Eastern Shore of Virginia to photograph the 

 fish hawk, or osprey. 



The first nest we picked — a huge affair 

 of sticks — was about forty feet above the 

 ground in a dead pine tree. As we ap- 

 proached, the old ospreys screamed and 

 dived at us, but at first their diving did not 

 excite us, for we had learned that all hawks 

 resent a visit to their homes. 



These birds, however, dived so often and 

 came so close that Frank decided to stay 

 on the ground and try to get a picture of 

 the parents swooping at us, while Morgan 

 Berthrong and I (John) climbed up to the 

 nest to take pictures of the young birds. 



When I climbed into the nest with the 



young ospreys, Morgan crawled out on a 

 dead limb to take a picture. He had his 

 legs wrapped around the limb and was look- 

 ing through the ground glass of his camera. 



I was busy taking movies of the young 

 ospreys when I heard a sudden swishing 

 noise and a dull, solid thud. I looked up 

 and saw Morgan slumped on the limb, with 

 one hand up to his head. He clutched a 

 dead stub, righted himself, and then man- 

 aged to mumble that the osprey had hit 

 him. 



I could hardly believe him at first, al- 

 though the female hawk had dived at us 

 several times and had come very close, so 

 close, in fact, that I could see her large, 

 scaly feet only a few inches from my face. 



With a little help Morgan managed to 

 crawl back down the limb. I saw that his 

 forehead was bleeding. Somehow he got 

 safely to the ground and we examined his 

 wound. Besides two cuts that started on 

 his forehead and ran the length of his head, 

 he had a very large bump and a severe head- 

 ache that lasted all day. 



JUST SAVED HIS EYES 



Morgan said he had heard the hawk com- 

 ing while he was focusing the camera. He 

 dropped the camera and looked up to see 

 the hawk only a foot away. He just had 

 time to turn his face down before the osprey 

 struck. He didn't remember how he got 

 down the tree, but he had seemed to realize 

 that he must not let go, for if he fell it was 

 a long way to the ground. 



Frank, who was below when the accident 

 occurred, had taken a picture just as the 

 osprey struck (page 130). Morgan felt 

 much better when he learned that being hit 

 by a fish hawk had brought some reward as 

 well as discomfort, although he resented 

 Frank's enthusiastic remark that it would 

 have made an even better picture if he could 

 have snapped Morgan falling out of the tree. 



We went back up to the nest and got our 

 pictures, but we kept a wary eye on the old 

 hawk. 



By this time we had assembled quite a bit 

 of material, so we managed to scrape up a 

 little more nerve than it requires to go 

 over a duck hawk cliff, and took our pic- 

 tures and the story of our observations 

 down to the Editor of The National Geo- 

 graphic Magazine. 



