. [Articles about birds from National geographic magazine]. Birds. 704 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE. AOW-AOW THE LIMPKIN CRIES, LIKE SOMEONE HAVING A TOOTH PULLED The weird sound may be the origin of many a superstition connected with Florida's swamps and savannas, where this noisy "crying bird" lives. When flying, the limpkin's wings flap jerkily up and down like those of a mechanical toy. The long-legged wader's favorite food is a large fresh-water snail, which it extracts without breaking the shell. Fortunately for us, Colonel Thompson had directed his superintendent, Albert S
. [Articles about birds from National geographic magazine]. Birds. 704 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE. AOW-AOW THE LIMPKIN CRIES, LIKE SOMEONE HAVING A TOOTH PULLED The weird sound may be the origin of many a superstition connected with Florida's swamps and savannas, where this noisy "crying bird" lives. When flying, the limpkin's wings flap jerkily up and down like those of a mechanical toy. The long-legged wader's favorite food is a large fresh-water snail, which it extracts without breaking the shell. Fortunately for us, Colonel Thompson had directed his superintendent, Albert Stringer, to build a blind of pine boughs two weeks before our arrival, so that the tur- keys would have time to get accustomed to it. Corn and peanuts were scattered some 20 yards in front of the blind each day, and when we arrived we found many signs of turkeys, deer, quail, squirrels, and mourn- ing doves that had been frequenting the spot. NOT A GOOD GOBBLING MORNING The day before we planned to make our record the sound truck was driven into the blind and completely concealed; the cable was stretched 250 feet to another blind where I could sit with Mr. Stoddard and aim the sound reflector at the gobblers when they should come off their roosts and advance toward the field. In the hope of attracting a gobbler within recording range, Stoddard armed himself with his turkey call and imitated the sound of a hen turkey. But turkeys are capricious birds. Tur- key hunters will tell you that certain days are "good gobbling mornings," and on other days not a gobble will be heard. Not one of the three days at our disposal proved to be a good gobbling morning and we had to content ourselves with mediocre sound, though we obtained some good film of a flock of hen turkeys and two magnificent old gobblers (page 701). It was interesting to watch from ambush their varying responses to the different morning sounds. To most they paid slight attention, but at anything suggestive of hu
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