. Wild wings; adventures of a camera-hunter among the larger wild birds of North America on sea and land . e Noddy and the Sooty Tern, both being birds of thetropics, which are found nesting only at this one spot in all ON LONELY BIRD KEY 87 the United States. Each is about the size of a pigeon, slenderand graceful, with rather long, pointed wings. The SootyTern is deep black in its upper plumage and snow-whitebelow, while the Noddy is dark brownish gray all over, savefor a whitish cap on its head. The Noddy reminds me ofphotographic negatives of our common terns of the North,which are of the
. Wild wings; adventures of a camera-hunter among the larger wild birds of North America on sea and land . e Noddy and the Sooty Tern, both being birds of thetropics, which are found nesting only at this one spot in all ON LONELY BIRD KEY 87 the United States. Each is about the size of a pigeon, slenderand graceful, with rather long, pointed wings. The SootyTern is deep black in its upper plumage and snow-whitebelow, while the Noddy is dark brownish gray all over, savefor a whitish cap on its head. The Noddy reminds me ofphotographic negatives of our common terns of the North,which are of the reverse shades of color, so that I had theconstant feeling of being in a strange part of the world wherethe accustomed order was upset, as though antipodal China-men were walking on their heads, and white were here Sooty Terns form the great majority of the populationof Bird Key. There are such clouds of them that accuratelyto estimate their numbers was impossible, but my guess ofsix or eight thousand I think cannot be far out of the the Noddies there are hardly a thousand, which is a. THE NESTING NODDY. A CASE OF LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT 88 WILD WINGS great decrease from the numbers that were once here. Thesetwo species alone breed on the island. Its only other fre-quenters are about two dozen great Man-o-War Birds, whichloaf about, sunning themselves, upon a certain tract ofbushes, the wharf, or the beacon, when they are not floatingserenely in the air or pursuing and robbing the terns as theycome in with the food secured in their trips out to sea eachmorning and afternoon. Though the climate is warm throughout the year, it is notbefore early May that the feathered hosts arrive from thesouth at this sandy rendezvous. In the van come the Nod-dies, only a few at first, but the rest within a few days. Aweek later the Sootv Terns pour in, and it is said that withina week of their arrival both kinds begin to lay. At the timeof our coming, nearly all the birds had eggs
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