. Pictures of bird life : on woodland meadow, mountain and marsh . ra over-board into nearly fi^•e feet of water, and if necessary remainhidden up for liours while waiting for the return of theold birds. An attempt to photograph the old birds on this occasionwas a failure, as was also another more determined onethe following year in the south of Spain, where, thoughI could see a dozen Spoonbills all roimd my hiding-place,tlie intervening reeds made any photograph of themimpracticable. On a second visit to this same Dutch locality the Spoon-bills had been disturbed by poachers, who had taken an
. Pictures of bird life : on woodland meadow, mountain and marsh . ra over-board into nearly fi^•e feet of water, and if necessary remainhidden up for liours while waiting for the return of theold birds. An attempt to photograph the old birds on this occasionwas a failure, as was also another more determined onethe following year in the south of Spain, where, thoughI could see a dozen Spoonbills all roimd my hiding-place,tlie intervening reeds made any photograph of themimpracticable. On a second visit to this same Dutch locality the Spoon-bills had been disturbed by poachers, who had taken anumber of their eggs, and in consequence, while the birdswhich had escaped molestation had lialf-grown young, manyothers were still sitting on eggs. The curious part of itwas that the clutches were umisually large, especially forsecond layings; in one nest were six eggs, and in anotherseven. At one of these nests I liid up witli a camera, over waist-deep in water, and covered o\er with reeds, for five nearly the whole of this time the Spoonl)ills were. 238 Pictures of Bird Life circling round and roinid my ambush, sometimes lookingas if tlicy meant to alii>ht, until by degrees tliey droppeddown to their nests hidden in tlie reeds. At last 1 hearda tremendous Happing, and, on looking out of my peep-hole, had the gratification of seeing one of these mag-nificent birds alighting on its nest, not seven yards bad luck would have it, I had left one reed betweenus, and a leaf of this dangled in front of the bird, andI liad to wait, watching the mnisual sight for severalminutes, until it departed. Then I crept out of myambush and cut down the offending reed, and retired againunder cover. It was not long before it returned : and whileon the point of making the exposure its mate alighted alsoon the nest, and I liad the pair of them in full view,standing up just in front of me. I was able to expose twoplates without disturbing them, and naturally thought thatsuccess
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirdspi, bookyear1903
