The unusually turbulent sea which prevailed during my visit to these cliffs, on July 11, 1898, prevented me from securing satisfactory pictures from a boat, but, landing on the west side of Bonaventure, I crossed the island (here about one and a half miles in width), and reached a position on the crest of the cliffs, from which the accompanying picture was made. About four hundred Gannets are shown nesting on this single ledge—one of many quite as densely populated. Preparations were made to secure a picture of these birds on the wing, but my best efforts to startle them into flight did not succeed in making a single bird leave its nest!
[Clark's Crows and Oregon Jays on Mount Hood]
BY FLORENCE A. MERRIAM
(Concluded from [page 48])
CLARK'S CROW AND OREGON JAY
Photographed from nature by Florence A. Merriam
A
lthough the Nutcrackers and Jays were masters of the feast, they did not altogether monopolize it. Ground squirrels with golden brown heads and striped backs would look out at me from the rocks, and pretty little striped-nosed chipmunks would pick up choice morsels and climb nimbly back along the cliff with them. Juncos often dropped in, pecked indifferently at the crumbs, slipped off the tin cans they tried to perch on, and flew off. Two Lewis' Woodpeckers stopped one day and, flying down, clung awkwardly to the side of the cliff, as if vaguely wanting to join in the proceedings, but not knowing how, finally left. A single Steller's Jay hung around the outskirts in the same way, the first day I was there. He hopped about, looked this way and that, and pecked at the food perfunctorily, as if it was new to his palate and not quite to his mind, acting altogether as if he realized that something was going on he ought to be enjoying, though he really didn't see just where the fun came in. Unlike the Woodpeckers, however, he was determined to improve his opportunities, and cultivated his appetite so successfully that on the last day when I visited the dining-room he and a comrade were working away, apparently enjoying the viands as much as their neighbors.