. Camera studies of wild birds in their homes . Father Chebec was in such a hurry that he trod allover one of the little birds while feeding the other. A Family of Redstarts The morning of one June day found me threading myway along a narrow footpath that wound its way in and outthrough one of the most delightful pieces of woodland thatever echoed a bird song. As I walked slowly along, I wasseparating, by their voices, the many varieties of birdswhose babble filled the woodland with melody. A gleam of orange and black among the foliage, pro-claims the presence of a Redstart, that alert member
. Camera studies of wild birds in their homes . Father Chebec was in such a hurry that he trod allover one of the little birds while feeding the other. A Family of Redstarts The morning of one June day found me threading myway along a narrow footpath that wound its way in and outthrough one of the most delightful pieces of woodland thatever echoed a bird song. As I walked slowly along, I wasseparating, by their voices, the many varieties of birdswhose babble filled the woodland with melody. A gleam of orange and black among the foliage, pro-claims the presence of a Redstart, that alert member of thewarbler family whose habits are so like those of some of theflycatchers. He was in the act of tearing fragments froma caterpillar nest; this material he carried across the pathto a small maple about twenty feet frorn me and wound itabout the framework of a nest that he and his mate hadjust commenced. While he was so engaged, his partnerappeared with a load of plant fibres which she carefullyand skilfully weaved into the growing home. 70. Fig. 59. MALE REDSTART AND FAMILY He was perfectly fearless and came as regularly as though weicere not present. 71 Seating myself under the shade of a bush not more thanten feet away I rnjoyed a two hour lesson in the art ofnest-building. The male was an unusually bright-coloredbird; he was very proud and conceited too. His mate wasalso very beautiful, even though less gaily clad than she knew more about correct house buildingthan Mr. Redstart, but he did not think so, and whenevershe objected to his manner of doing the work, he promptlydrove her away with playful snappings of his bill. In theend, she had her way as is usual in such differences, forwhen he went off for more material she would do his workover to suit herself. They were exceedingly active in all their movements,their actions as they chased one another about being bewil-dering. Naturally, with so much play, the nest grew butslowly, and it was over a week from
Size: 1379px × 1813px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidcamerast, booksubjectbirds
