CALLING ON TIIK MAkSII BIRDS 



489 



on. " Peeo tahhusish nebe," a passing red- 

 man told us — wait for low water. We pon- 

 dered his words as the "tump " of his paddle 

 on the old dugout grew faint in the distance. 

 True words they were, for not a bird that 

 nested low showed any sign of industry. 



Towards the end of the month, one 

 bright spring morning, as the canoe turned 

 into the narrow, beaver-grass-lined chan- 

 nels, we noticed that all the birds were busy 

 nest building. Last night we had paddled 

 through here and not a bird was at work. 

 What wonderful instinct! The water fell 

 from that morning. But what puzzled us 

 the most was how the unseen signal spread. 

 What was it that carried this news over all 

 these boggy marshes, aye, and all over this 

 wide lake and sinuous river, that simultane- 

 ously the entire feathered kingdom started 

 to build their summer homes ? 



We saw a very interesting sight — a musk- 

 rat, drowned out by the high water, carrying 

 her babes, one at a time, struggling and 

 squealing, to a piece of bog, where she laid 

 them to dry. We approached and floated 

 the small camera, staked it firmly, focused 

 it on the spot, connected the rubber tubes, 

 and hid the canoe behind some tall, dry 

 flags to get a picture of the mother on her 

 return, and right into focus a Virginia rail 

 stepped and examined with bright-eyed 

 curiosity the kicking youngsters. "Clang" 

 rang the curtain, away sped the bird, leaving 

 behind the film's impression of this odd 

 scene. Later we took this golden-brown 

 bird with bright red bill as she stood beside 

 a little pond-hole in the marsh. She builds 

 her nest in basket shape, well woven, right 

 in the centre of the flags' roots. She cuts 

 and tears these out, without disturbing the 

 outside shoots, that twist their swordlike 

 leaves together at the top, forming a perfect 

 screen and shelter. We later opened this 

 little "house" and pictured the lilac and 

 olive-spotted eggs. 



Before the redheads left on the northern 

 migration we had the luck to have a big 

 drake, with his brilliant head and glossy 

 black-and-white back glistening in the sun, 

 swim slowly past our waiting lens. Again, 

 while we rested on the shore, a female 

 whistler came ashore for gravel and left us 

 her picture ere she, too, joined the flight to 

 her far-off nesting-grounds on Hudson Bay. 



A YELLOWLEG PLOVER 



The black-duck, a fowl that nests here, was 

 always in evidence, jumping with that soul- 

 stirring quack of his from many a hidden 

 creek; beside its banks, under some near-by 

 cedar, the female sat crouched on her care- 

 fully constructed nest, plucking from her 

 breast the well-oiled feathers to build a wall 

 around the nest, so that when scared off or 

 driven forth by hunger a couple of dabs of 

 her olive -green bill turned this woven 

 feather and grass and tw r ig-built wall over 

 and thoroughly concealed the nest . We took 

 a picture of a handsome specimen of this 

 breed as it stood on the shore-line with 

 alarmed eye and tense muscles, ready to 

 jump and fly. Makkudasheeb, our Indian 

 friends call them. This mile square held 

 also the nests of the brilliant wood-duck. 

 Anon a drake flashed by us, a moving rain- 

 bow; on the well-built nest in the forks of a 

 drowned land tree the more soberly clad 

 female sat on her greenish tinted eggs. 

 Springing away with an alarmed squeal as 

 our canoe entered the marshy bay, little 

 sawbills, the hooded mergansers, built their 

 nests at the base of a swamp willow or in a 

 broken stub top; the graceful little teal con- 



