BLUEBIRD FLYING TO NEST
BY ROBERT W. HEGNER
With Photographs from Nature by the Author.
D
uring the severe cold of January and February, 1895, most of the Bluebirds were thought to have perished. So it is with the spirit of a genuine Audubon that we hail their return in ever increasing numbers each succeeding spring. How sadly we should miss these little friends may be judged by the great commotion among ornithologists caused by their supposed extinction. In order to have more than a mere remembrance of their habits, I set out one day in the summer of 1898, at Decorah, Iowa, to obtain photographs of them in their haunts, and secured two interesting negatives of the female, as shown in the accompanying illustrations. The history of the case is as follows: A pair of Bluebirds, after several previous attempts at housekeeping, and subsequent removals by 'small boys,' at last selected an old, deserted, Woodpecker's hole in a fence-post, and built, as usual, a nest of dry grass with a softer lining of horse-hair. The birds had already begun incubating the three pale blue eggs, which formed the set, when I disturbed them. I crept within five feet of the post before the female left the nest and joined her mate, who had been keeping guard in a neighboring plum tree.
