WHITE-HEADED OSPREY (FISH-HAWK). 
of coast about seventy miles in length. This gives each pair a range of about 
five miles. As a rule the nests were ridiculously easy of approach, being built 
on a sand hummock or a large boulder, or log of driftwood laid on the beach. 
One nest was built on the flat surface of a saltmarsh, so that one could drive 
up to it in a buggy and look inside it. As a high and very rugged rocky 
range, with vast cliffs and gorges, runs parallel to the coast from Point Cloates 
to the North-west Cape, sometimes being only a quarter of a mile from the 
beach, the birds could easily have selected sites that would be very difficult, 
if not impossible, of access had they chosen to do so. It could not be said 
that they reared their young in peace and quietness, as the numerous natives 
constantly took both eggs and young to eat. After the jetty was erected 
at Maud’s Landing, 35 miles south of Point Cloates, a crane was put up on 
the head of it for working cargo. Almost every year a pair of Ospreys built 
a bulky nest on top of the large wheel on crane about twelve feet above the 
deck of jetty, and although this nest was constantly pulled down so that 
the crane could be worked when a vessel came in, the birds persistently 
rebuilt it. I have recently received some interesting photographs of the nest 
on the crane from Mr. G. H. Barton, who has the charge of the jetty since 
I left there in 1902. One photograph shows one of the birds on the nest. 
Mr. Barton has sent me notes at various times respecting the birds, and in 
his last states, July 7, 1912 : ‘ A pair of Ospreys have been trying again to 
build a nest on the crane at end of jetty, but I have been forced to knock it 
down twice, and now they have built it a third time, and as no boats have 
called recently it contains three eggs.’ As a boat came in soon after Mr. 
Barton wrote this, he had to pull the nest down and he wrote me on November 
11, 1912, that he actually pulled sevm nests down last year from the top of 
the crane, and as boats then came in regularly for wool, the Ospreys aban- 
doned the site for that year. For many years a pair of Ospreys laid in an 
immense nest built in the top of a large red mangrove tree near the North- 
west Cape. This nest was visible for miles away as one approached it albng 
the flat between the range and beach. On one occasion I climbed up to it 
but found it impossible to do more than reach the bottom of the nest, and it 
was so wide I could not reach out far enough to grasp the edges and try to 
climb up the sides of it. The tree eventually blew down in a hurricane, as 
the nest would catch a lot of the wind. Another tall nest was found built 
on a mangrove log laid on the beach. By standing on tiptoe on the log, I 
could just peer over the edge of the nest, which was 5 feet 6 inches in height. 
The nests are made of large sticks, masses of seaweed, and any rubbish picked 
up from the beach. Straw envelopes from bottles thrown from passing steamers 
were often built into the fabric of nest. Three is the usual clutch of eggs. 
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