An Interesting 
Bird. 
( 210 ) 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
An Interesting Bird. 
The Ruff Again Breeding in Noriolk. 
Everyone who takes an interest in 
birds, writes Miss E. L. Turner in 
British Birds, will have the greatest 
satisfaction in learning that the 
Ruff, so long lost to Norfolk as 
a' breeding bird, has once more 
nested in the county. A few Ruffs 
and Reeves may be seen about the 
particular marshes of which I write 
every spring, and during the last two 
years young birds have been shot at the 
end of the summer, so that, although 
the nest which I have had the good 
fortune to photograph this summer is 
the first which has been recorded since 
1889, it is not improbable that others 
may have existed undiscovered. 
My excitement was intense when 
about two o’clock in the afternoon of 
June 13th last, a keeper suddenly 
dropped into my cabin, without an¬ 
nouncing himself, and told me he had 
found a Reeve’s nest containing four 
eggs. We set off at once with my 
camera, and in a very short time I was 
standing about eight feet from the sit¬ 
ting bird. At first I could scarcely 
see her, as with head low down she 
crouched in her nest, until she seemed 
as a part of the surrounding herbage. 
We remained motionless some time, the 
Reeve and myself, while the keeper re¬ 
turned to the cabin for a hand camera. 
After a while and before the hand 
camera arrived, the Reeve suddenly 
flew away, and then I was able to begin 
preparations for photographing. 
Rough and Hasty. 
On this first occasion the prepara¬ 
tions were rough and hasty, as I was 
keen to begin my task. First of; all the 
eggs were exchanged with those of a 
Redshank, so that I might have no 
compunction in keeping the Reeve off 
the nest for several hours at a stretch. 
The nest, which closely resembled that 
of a Redshank, was placed in a tussock 
of rushes in the midst of low swampy 
ground, near to a dyke, and scarcely 
50 yards from a well-used waterway. A 
hurdle thatched with reeds was first 
placed on the ground about five feet 
from the nest, and on this was heaped 
some rough litter, and over all was 
spread an oilskin coat. On this I 
esconced myself with the camera, and 
then the keeper covered me up with 
rough sedge and grass. 
On the first day my chance was spoilt 
owing to a heavy thunderstorm which 
raged for upwards of an hour just after 
I had settled into my cover. I dared 
not move, for the Reeve was never far 
off, so when she came I dropped the 
shutter and took my chance, which re¬ 
sulted in failure,, the rain having fogged 
the lenses. The next day I failed again 
—my fingers were too numb to press the 
ball at the right moment, and my eyes 
were blurred with long gazing through 
the criss-cross strands of grass that hid 
me. Depressed and limp, I crept back 
to my cabin and awaited the coming of 
another day. 
Success at Last. 
Success came on June 18th, when I 
secured my first picture. I had much 
more difficulty in getting the Reeve to 
face the stereoscopic camera than the 
ordinary single lens, and throughout she 
was a difficult subject, for in eight days 
I only secured four pictures out of six 
chances. The bird was seldom far 
away unless off on the feed, in which 
case she would return suddenly and run 
straight on to the nest, always ap¬ 
proaching from the one direction. Gener¬ 
ally, however, she would run to and 
fro, or take short flights over the 
marsh, or I would hear her splashing 
around me in the swamp, sometimes 
uttering a low note, resembling the 
quack of a duck more than anything 
else. Once she returned accompanied 
by a Redshank, which perched on my 
rubbish heap—a favourite “ preening ” 
place for all the birds in the neighbour¬ 
hood—and for half-an-hour whistled 
and called. The Reeve meanwhile would 
move her head from side to side and 
look up at him, as if cheered in her 
loneliness by his neighbourliness. On 
one occasion a Snipe ran across the fore¬ 
ground just as I dropped the shutter; a 
fraction of a second later both Snipe 
and Reeve were side by side, and so I 
just missed a unique and doubly-in¬ 
teresting picture. 
