tree was not much easier to climb this time, <. 

 although the many vines which presented such a 

 hazard last year had not grown back sufficiently 

 to be a problem. It was still a tough climb, but 

 on pulling myself finally uf* onto the edge of 

 the nest all my problems evaporated: For there 

 to my delight were three perfect fresh eggs o$ 

 the Bald Eagle! Needless to say, we^were over- 

 joyed to have such fantastic good fortune in 

 our timing since it was obvious that had we 

 arrived only a few days earlier r we might well 

 have found only one egg in the huge nest! jj 



The latter was little changed from last year. : 

 It was obvious that the birds had used the nest ; 

 . repeatedly and for this nesting season it % 

 seemed they had added only a few more sticks as 

 well as some grasses and sod- The feather con- , 

 tinued to be bright and clear and not too cold. 

 From the nest I could see far out into Chesapeak 

 Bay as well as the Little Creek Station to the 

 south. I could only hope that these magnificent 

 birds would return to lay another clutch of eggs 

 and raise their family. After taking some notes 

 and getting a picture of the nest and eggs by 

 standing on a higher limb and "shooting" over my 

 feet (the last exposure!), I came down the tree 

 though I almost slipped once. I had passed the 

 three eggs down to Dad after carefully wrapping 

 them in cotton batting, tissue, and a small 

 towel and placing them in my gas mask bag. Once 

 on the ground I showed our treasure to Dad and 

 he was almost as excited as I! 



We drained the last water from the canteen, 

 discussed our good fortune and then set out for 

 the car. We had a very pleasant but uneventful 

 trip back to the University, stopping near 

 Richmond for supper and arriving about 8 PM. 



See the last, page of the 

 Second Trip for Observations. 



JFBC Feb. 20, 1939 



