Page:Bird-lore Vol 04.djvu/136

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Nighthawk Notes 115

turned away frotn the trunk made it look, even through a good pair of field» glasses, like a knot. and I found it hard to persuade my wife that it was not one. I suppose it sat with its tail towards the tree trunk because it was more comfortable to have its head up hill than down.

Soon after this we had a week of almost continuous rain, and I saw no more birds until the weather cleared, when the Nighthawks were every, where flying in the bright sunshine.


NIGHTIIAWK WAITING MAR


June 10, I saw one sitting NIy neighbor's daughter had found the nest two days before. As I am a teacher of mathematics, I was pleased to think that this bird had a mathematical turn of mind, for the eggs were laid almost in the center of an equilateral triangle made of small pine branches that happened to lie across each otheri There was no real nest, only a slight depression from which the twigs had been removed.

I am not a ‘czunera fiend,‘ but I wanted pictures of the eggs and bird, Two of my friends are successful amateurs, and I induced them to furnish the necessary camera, patience and skilli At first we focused at a distance of twelve or fifteen feet, then gradually worked up to five feet