. [Articles about birds from National geographic magazine]. Birds. 128 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE. A MOTHER FALCON COCKS A KEEN EYE AT THE LENS AS THE CAMERA CLICKS Starting to incubate her splotched mahogan>'-colored eggs, the female duck hawk squats down behind them and slowly shuffles forward, quivering all over to fluff out her feathers so that the warm down next to her body will cover the eggs. This was the first bird of prey photographed by the Craighead brothers in the wild. To focus their camera, the boys had to lie on their stomachs with one foot dangling over the cliff overl
. [Articles about birds from National geographic magazine]. Birds. 128 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE. A MOTHER FALCON COCKS A KEEN EYE AT THE LENS AS THE CAMERA CLICKS Starting to incubate her splotched mahogan>'-colored eggs, the female duck hawk squats down behind them and slowly shuffles forward, quivering all over to fluff out her feathers so that the warm down next to her body will cover the eggs. This was the first bird of prey photographed by the Craighead brothers in the wild. To focus their camera, the boys had to lie on their stomachs with one foot dangling over the cliff overlooking the Potomac River. and there it remained, a disturbing element, until we had finished climbing. Frank insisted on going over to select his hawk and we hoped we were not tempt- ing fate or the rope by letting him go. Nevertheless, the staring spectators and the ambulance worried us. But Frank said, "To heck with them. If we fall, a broom is what they need, not an ; NO PLACE TO BE CARELESS Frank was lowered, picked a lively young falcon, and started to climb up, but the hawk had other ideas. She got her head and one foot out of the knapsack and when he tried to shove her back she clamped on his hand with her talons. While we held him suspended he pried his hand loose and then climbed to the top, much to our relief. We have found it never pays to be careless or overconfident while undertaking to climb a cliff. Several summers ago, while quite inexperienced in such work, we climbed to the eyrie of a prairie falcon in Wyoming, about fifty miles south of Yel- lowstone National Park. As we discovered too late, a steel helmet would have been a valuable piece of equipment.* Frank, who is always lucky on flips, * See "Week-Ends with the Prairie Falcon," by Frederick Hall Fowler, in The N.^^tional Geo- graphic Magazine for May, Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readabil
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