. Pictures of bird life : on woodland meadow, mountain and marsh . e empty wlien, after some struggling, I hadreached the spot, though standing up in the punt we had seenyoung birds in e^ery jiest. After a lot of hunting about invain, it occurred to me to look imder the nests, whicli, for awonder, were Ijuilt on dry ground, or at any rate comparativelydry for Purple Herons. There in a space of a few inchesbetween tlie nests and the ground all the young Herons werecrouching motionless, hoping, no dou])t. that the enemy woulddepart without detecting them. One luckless individual hadallowed me to
. Pictures of bird life : on woodland meadow, mountain and marsh . e empty wlien, after some struggling, I hadreached the spot, though standing up in the punt we had seenyoung birds in e^ery jiest. After a lot of hunting about invain, it occurred to me to look imder the nests, whicli, for awonder, were Ijuilt on dry ground, or at any rate comparativelydry for Purple Herons. There in a space of a few inchesbetween tlie nests and the ground all the young Herons werecrouching motionless, hoping, no dou])t. that the enemy woulddepart without detecting them. One luckless individual hadallowed me to tread on it sooner than move, and on retracingmy steps to return to the punt its body was found crushed bymv liea\v nailed brogues. The colouring of these nestling Iurple Herons is very Bird Life in Dutch Marshes 243 strikino-. ilieir reddish plumage shows oft the yellow eyesand hcak, o-reen le^^s, and briglit blue primary (piills, so tliat three or fourof these bi-zarre - lookingyoung birdsstanding intheir nestmake a mosteffective pic-t u r e. T h eadult birds. are a triflesmaller thanthe CommonHerons, andlook darker incolour. It was acommon sightin our progressin the puntalong the canal- like channels cut in tlie reeds to see these birds, disturbed byour presence, rising from the reeds with flapping wings and Black Tern {Hydrocliclidon nigra). 244 Pictures of Bird Life drooping legs, and to surprise them on their way liome. Onseeing us tliey would pull up in their Hight, and sheer oft inanotlier direetion with nuieh eonvulsi\e and laborious tlieir nests they are \ ery noisy, making tlie most extra-ordinary grunting and groaning. The diffieulty in photographing tliese wary birds, so strikingin their appearanee and so interesting in tlieir habits, and the])ietures(pie nature of tlieir haunts, only made me more anxiousto make another attempt on different lines. Aeeordingly. in 11)01, a speeial expedition to the same placewas made in order to photograph the S]:)oonbill
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirdspi, bookyear1903
