Photographing “Prairie Pigeons”’ 93 
the tripod and camera among the reeds at 
the edge of one and, standing quietly 
behind the instrument partly under the 
focus-cloth, I had little trouble in photo- 
graphing them as they swam gracefully 
and prettily about. Then | moved the 
camera to an area of nests where the reeds 
grew rather sparsely and opened up the 
view to the nearer nests. The birds soon 
became somewhat accustomed to me and 
would alight on their nests within twenty 
to a dozen feet, though I stood by the 
camera and was working the telephoto lens 
to good advantage. The main secret of 
success with this rather cumbersome yet 
very useful instrument is absolute rigidity, 
which can be secured by using a firm tripod, 
propping up the front of the camera with a 
stick or brace and sheltering it from the 
wind. The proper exposure in bright sun- 
light is about one-half second with the lens 
‘wide open. Sometimes one can secure 
Just as good pictures by employing a single 
‘member of a large doublet, and enlarging 
the picture at home. Yet if the telephoto 
is handled rightly it will give very fine 
pictures, though there is a lack of depth 
of focus. The time was when I had 
almost given up in despair the securing of 
first-class pictures with this cumbersome 
arrangement, but my courage has revived, 
as during the season just passed I have 
secured with it some of my best pictures— 
particularly when it was used from a 
sheltered place, in concealment. 
The day had now gone, like a pleasant 
dream, amidst the intoxicating delight of 
such enlivening scenes, surrounded by 
beautiful birds—in the air, on their nests, 
or feeding their young. Two weeks passed 
before | made the second visit to this great 
and noisy aggregation of bird life. As I 
waded out again among the reeds | hardly 
recognized the place. It was surprising in 
that short time how the reeds had grown. 
On that first day one easily overtopped the 
dead, broken stems beaten down by the 
winter’s storms, and could see in all direc- 
tions near and far with unimpeded view 
the hosts of beautiful, fluttering creatures. 
Now the lush green growth had arisen like 
a veritable forest, in whose depths one was 
completely buried and in danger that cloudy 
afternoon of getting lost without the aid 
of a compass. The one compensation was 
that the sharp spear-like points of the reeds 
were now so high up that there was no 
longer the unpleasant likelihood whenever 
one stooped of receiving a thrust in the 
eyes. 
Through such dense growth it was no 
easy matter to wade the quarter of a mile 
to the beginning of the colony. However, 
as | struggled slowly on various sights en- 
livened the journey. The brilliantly col- 
ored male yellow-headed blackbirds were 
giving the alarm to their duller-hued mates, 
who flew from their basket-nests suspended 
in the reeds, revealing the gaping mouths 
of their ever-hungry offspring. Now and 
then | came upon the floating, soggy nest 
of a grebe, with its dirty white eggs, or the 
neater and drier structure of the mud-hen 
or coot. Then came a pretty find—seven 
eggs of the redhead duck in a wicker 
basket-like nest. 
Though the surroundings had changed, 
the birds had not. Effusive, noisy, solic- 
itous as ever, they soon found me out, 
struggling amid the reeds, and poured 
forth the incisive torrent of their invective. 
Yet they hardly seemed as numerous, for 
many of them were gathering food for their 
young which were now nearly all hatched. 
Swarms of them, cunning little striped 
brownish balls of down, left the nests at my 
approach and swam off among the reeds. 
The whole place was literally alive with 
them. 
It was really a beautiful sight to stand 
quietly in the reeds at the edge of one of 
the open pools and watch what occurred. 
The adult gulls kept dropping down into 
the water, and bands of youngsters would 
swim out from their places of concealment 
among the reeds to join them. The old 
gulls were not at all glad to see them; they 
swam vigorously after the chicks, pecked 
at them and drove them back under cover 
of the reeds. Perhaps they were afraid 
that | would hurt the little things, yet they 
themselves did not seem to fear my pres- 
ence particularly, though they kept up 
their screaming all the time—perhaps 
from force of habit. I had the camera on 
the tripod, and was making brief-timed 
exposures on them, as the light was not 
strong enough for instantaneous work. It 
may have been that they were curious to 
know what I was doing, for they swam up 
within ten feet of me, seeming to be greatly 
interested in my photographic work. Now 
