HORNED LARK AT NEST
At my arrival on the bright, sunny morning of April 24, the Lark was at home, and I had another opportunity of trying to photograph her. I focused the camera three feet from the nest and retired to the end of my 60-foot rubber tube. The gophers seemed to be less afraid of me than the Lark, and several of them played together some ten feet away. One little striped rascal began gnawing at the rubber tube, and I was forced to frighten him away. This tube greatly puzzled the Lark, for in running around the camera she always came to a halt upon reaching it, and it was only after repeated trials and much excitement that she screwed up courage enough to hop over. Twenty minutes seemed to be sufficient time to reassure her, and with head lowered she hastened to the nest, looked in, and settled down upon the eggs. An exposure of one twenty-fifth of a second with stop 16 shows her as she was looking into the nest. While I reset my shutter and put in a new plate the Lark left the nest, but this time it took her only two minutes to return. A photograph of a young bird was taken on May 7. The pair of birds that were feeding this young one had already built a second nest, thinner and more loosely put together than the first, and were incubating four eggs.
The enemies of the Prairie Horned Lark seem to be very numerous. The nest and four eggs mentioned above were plowed under to facilitate corn planting, while innumerable nests are destroyed earlier in the season, when the farmers 'break sod.' The first nests in March and April are often subject to great changes of temperature. Although they may be built in warm, sunny weather, a sudden cold wave often covers them with snow and imbeds them in ice.
While waiting for the Lark to become accustomed to the camera, I had an excellent opportunity of observing its song flight. Lying there on my back, I enjoyed a splendid exhibition of one of this bird's peculiar traits. From a point a hundred yards from where I lay a happy songster suddenly arose, flying upward at an angle of 45 degrees, not continuously, but in short stretches. When at a great elevation he began to sing, taking short, quick wing strokes, and singing while he sailed. In this way a circle 300 yards in diameter was crossed and recrossed until fully five minutes had passed, when, suddenly closing his wings, he shot downward like a bullet, slowly catching himself on nearing the ground and curving outward to his starting point. Several similar exhibitions were carried on in exactly the same manner, the time not varying by half a minute. Though the song lacks many of the fine qualities of other birds, it clearly expresses the joy and happiness of the singer. With thrills of pleasure we hear it echo over the hills, and bless the little creature, hoping that in the 'struggle for existence' he may thrive and wax exceeding strong.
SCREECH OWL
Photographed from life by A. L. Princehorn
A Pleasant Acquaintance with a Hummingbird
BY C. F. HODGE