. Wild wings; adventures of a camera-hunter among the larger wild birds of North America on sea and land . - should have given up, but for the exasperation at mj blind-ness which made me determined to find it. When mv e3-es,at length, separated the eggs from the stones, I realized thatI had passed it a score of times. One of my prettiest experiences with my sedate little friendwas when cruising among the Florida Keys. We had landed SHORE-BIRD LOITERERS 247 upon one with a shore of shell-sand, having seen from thevessel that behind the fringe of mangroves along the outerbeach was a li
. Wild wings; adventures of a camera-hunter among the larger wild birds of North America on sea and land . - should have given up, but for the exasperation at mj blind-ness which made me determined to find it. When mv e3-es,at length, separated the eggs from the stones, I realized thatI had passed it a score of times. One of my prettiest experiences with my sedate little friendwas when cruising among the Florida Keys. We had landed SHORE-BIRD LOITERERS 247 upon one with a shore of shell-sand, having seen from thevessel that behind the fringe of mangroves along the outerbeach was a little lake. An occasional flutter of white wingsmade us all the more curious. The sight which greeted us aswe peered through the low mangrove bushes was one I would. NEST AND EGGS OF WILSON S PLOVER go far again to see. On a projecting point of the sandv shorewas a colony of about fifty pairs of the Least Tern. Thefemales were incubating, and the males preening their featherson the sand near by or along the margin, their pearl andwhite plumage showing off prettily against the pulverizedshells and the lapping water. Scattered here and there werelittle grav Wilsons Plovers quietly feeding along the shoreor resting on the sand. Out in the shallow water, conspicuous 248 WILD WINGS b}^ their position, on long, stilt-like legs, stood several birds ofa kind I had never seen before in my life, another Southernloiterer, the Black-necked Stilt. How gracefully the} wadedabout, probing the muddy bottom for worms or mollusks withtheir long, sensitive bills! A tiock of small migrating sand-pipers, probably the Semipalmated, were also feeding alongthe edge. Of course the terns nests were easily discovered, hollowsin the sand, quite near together, usually contain
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjobh, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirds
