Page:Bird-lore Vol 01.djvu/30

 frightened the birds away. They were back again within a few minutes, but an unexpected source of annoyance interfered. A freight train stopped opposite the scene of my operations and belched great billows of smoke between the sun and the birds. Also the shadow of the cabin was gradually encroaching on the feeding ground. I made a trial exposure, however, and obtained a very good negative. But a shadow in the foreground and a wagon tongue in the rear, did not add to the pictorial effect of the group.

After much pulling and prying, I pushed the objectionable wagon out of the drifts, and put off further photographing until the next morning. The morning came as bright and sunny as I desired. My



YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRDS

feathered subjects were early in the open air studio, and required no conventional admonition to ‘look pleasant.’ In fact, they were almost too lively for the camera shutter. The negative obtained proved very good, and well repaid me for all trouble and annoyance.

A few Yellow-headed Blackbirds were attracted by the food supply I furnished, and I made several negatives of them. The Yellow-heads were more wary than the Horned Larks, and flew away at the slightest disturbance. Only a few at a time gathered beneath the window, while the others perched on fence-posts at a safe distance and kept watch.

But it remained for a Northern Shrike to add ‘insult to injury,’ by seizing a dead mouse I had placed on a post and alighting on the camera with its capture!