JUNE 23, 1906.] 


Finley ‘and Bohlman at work with reflex camera at the aery of golden eagle. ; 
taken by themselves with second camera in the treetop, by attaching a thread to the shutter and pulling it.) 
Getting photos of the young eagles near at hand. Photo by Bohlman and Finley. 
“the amateur, not to the professional; but, to be 
‘a successful amateur bird photographer, one has 
fairly to make a business of lying in wait for his 
subjects hour after hour, day by day, and, may- 
be, week after week. 
We have found few nests that are absolutely 
beyond human touch, but it las taken’a deal of 
scheming and a risk of life or limb to reach some 
‘of them. We schemed for three different sum- 
mers after we found the aery of a red-tailed 
hawk in the top of a tall cottonwood over on the 
bank of Columbia river before we finally suc- 
ceeded ii leveling our camera at the eggs. The 
nest-tree measured over fourteen feet around at 
the bottom. The nest itself was lodged just one 
hundred and twenty feet up. It was out of the 
question to clamber*up such a tree with climbers, 
ropes, or anything else, but we had another plan. 
We had spotted a young cottonwood just fif- 
‘teen feet away. This might serve as a ladder, so 
we chopped at the base till it began to totter. 
With ropes we pulled it over. The crown lodged 
in the branches of the first large limb of the 
nest-tree fully forty feet up. This formed a 
shaky, aerial bridge up which we clambered a 
third of the distance to the nest. We lassoed 
upper branches, dug our climbing-irons into the 
bark and worked slowly up. 
We found a stack of sticks the size of a small 
haycock. They were not pitched together helter- 
skelter. A big nest like a hawk’s or heron’s used 
to give me the impression that it was easily 
thrown together. I examined ‘this one and found 
it as‘carefully woven as a wicker basket. It was 
Strong at every point: Sticks over a yard in 
length and some as big as your wrist were all 
worked into a compact mass. 
How could we ever secure a good series of 
pictures at such a distancé from the ground? It 
looked impossible at first, but a careful examina- 
tion revealed a rare arrangeinent of nest and sur- 
roundings. If we could but hoist our equipment 
there was no question as to photographs. Fight 
feet below the aery, the trunk of the tree 
branched and spread in such a way that we could 
climb to a point just above the nest on the oppo- 
site limb. We strapped the camera in a crotch 
that seemed built for the purpose, with the sun 
“a 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
993 


Birds about grown. (This photo 
coming from the right direction. The rub came 
in focusing the instrument. One hundred and 
twenty feet is not such a dizzy height when you 
stand on the ground and look up, but strap your- 
self to the limb of a tree and dangle out back- 
ward over the brink. No matter how strong the 
rope, there’s a feeling of death creeping up and 
down every nerve in your body the first time you 
try it. 
Perhaps the most difficult task we have at- 
tempted in tree-top photography was the taking 
of a series of pictures of golden eagles in their 
native haunt. For several years we had known 
of a pair of these birds that nested in the Coast 
Mountains of California. We had been growing 
impatient to try our cameras on such royal sub- 
jects. The chance came in the spring of 1904. 
From Oakland we took the train for a small sta- 
tion thirty miles south. Then, ascending out of 
the cultivated district, we followed a trail for 
several hours till we reached the highest shoulder 
of the range and crossed over into the main 
canyon. 
At the very top of the range the mountain 
breaks abruptly off into the head of the big 
canyon. This is the native haunt of the golden 
eagle. A large sycamore is rooted in the bed of 
the stream. Four good-sized trunks rise from 
the giant roots. To the branch bending toward 
the valley, above the steep, rocky slope, the eagles 
had carried a small cartload of limbs and sticks 
and worked them into the forks, where they 
branched horizontal to the ground. It was a plat- 
form five feet across, not carelessly put together. 
but each stick woven in to add strength to the 
whole structure, as the stones are built into a 
castle. 
Climbing one of the other trees, the photog- 
rapher put up a tiny platform in the topmost 
branches, where the camera was fastened and 
aimed downward at the aery twenty feet away. 
It was not an easy matter to photograph in the 
top limbs of that sycamore, where an ill-judged 
movement might land camera and all in the bed 
of the canyon. But we made six long mountain 
trips with our heavy camera equipment, extend- 
ing over a period of almost three months, in order 
to get a series of pictures of this wild bird and 
his home. We snapped over a hundred 5x7 
plates, exposed at every available view of the 
stronghold, from terra-firma to tree-top. 
Our work at the eagle’s nest ilustrates well 
the necessity of a good series of lenses when one * 
is photographing in the tree-tops. The camera 
was fastened in a crotch of the tree where it 
could not be moved either forward or back. By 
adjusting the wide-angle lens, we could get a 
view of the nest and surrounding limbs, and at 
the same time have a depth of focus that, showed 
the outline of the valley lying miles below. By 
the use of the regular lens, the nest was brought 
nearer the camera, and still the sweep of the 
rocky sides of the canyon was retained. The 
single rear lens gave a different picture, narrowed 
down to the outer end of the limb containing the 
nest. Our telephoto lens had the power of bring- 
ing the nest as close as we cared to photograph 
it, fully covering a 5x7 plate and giving a clear 
definition of the eggs and the lining of the nest. 
_ One cannot help feeling the dangers of climb- 
ing about the limbs of a tall tree, but it always 
doubles his caution when he has to maneuver 
in the topmost boughs, carrying a camera that has 
cost him over two hundred dollars. One day we 
narrowly escaped an expensive accident. We 
were hoisting our camera, and half way up one 
of the lines parted. Fortunately, I was below, 
ready for such an emergency, and as the camera 
shot downward, I spread my hands in the nick 
of time to stop the fall. It knocked me backward, 
and the camera would have bounded over the 
edge of the bank and been smashed on the rocks 
fourteen feet below had my fingers not closed on 
the piece of rope as it slipped through my hand. 
Wituiam L. FINLey. 
PoRTLAND, Oregon, 

Fate of the Wild Pigeons. 
SPRINGFIELD, Mass., June 11.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: | was vety much interested in read- 
ing the article contained in the natural history 
department of the Forest AND STREAM on 
the “Fate of Wild Pigeons,” and agree with the 
author in his conclusions that the probable cause 
for these birds’ disappearance was their slaughter 
and the prevention of reproduction. 
But I fail to see the force of his suggestion 
that wild pigeons, at the present day, would be 
incompatible with agricultural interests, at least 
as far as New England is concerned. There is 
less cultivated land here now than there was 
thirty years ago, and without any complaint 
against them, for two hundred years and more 
they were plentiful in this section. After the 
primeval forests were destroyed, the pigeons 
flourished from the food they obtained in the 
region covered by the second growth. As far as 
grain was concerned, they were simply gleaners 
and quickly converted abandoned grain and nuts 
into a fertilizer, not leaving it to remain decay- 
ing vegetable matter. [ am sure that wild pigeons 
would be welcome back to the region by every- 
body. As an article of food, they were a great 
benefit to the people. Old account books show 
that here in the Connecticut valley in 1725 they 
were sold as low three pence a dozen. In 17090 
they were up to nine pence, and for twenty-five 
years next, before their disappearance, they sold 
for from seventy-five cents to three dollars per 
dozen. 1876 was the last year that wild pigeons 
were plentiful in Massachusetts. For a few years 
after that an occasional flock was seen. In May, 
1884, I well remember seeing a wild pigeon for 
the last time. Rosert O. Morris. 

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