There was a standing joke among
my friends that I never would be satisfied with my field work
until I had made a study of a 'Ha-ha bird,' but I doubt if even
that specimen would have lifted the gloom of those days. Everything
was a drag, and frequently I would think over it all in detail,
and roundly bless myself for taking a prize so rare, to me
at least, into the open.
The third day stands lurid in my memory. It was the hottest,
most difficult day of all my years of experience afield. The
temperature ranged from 104 to 108 in the village, and in
quarries open to the east, flat fields, and steaming swamps it
certainly could have been no cooler. With set cameras I was
working for a shot at a hawk that was feeding on all the young
birds and rabbits in the vicinity of its nest. I also wanted a
number of studies to fill a commission that was pressing me.
Subjects for several pictures had been found, and exposures made
on them when the weather was so hot that the rubber slide of a plate
holder would curl like a horseshoe if not laid on a case, and held
flat by a camera while I worked.
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