The Way of the Eagle

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 21, 16 April 1927, Page 21 (Supplement)

The Way of the Eagle

Majestic Birds are Hard to Photograph GHNG oat after wild life with a camera is just as exciting as stalking big game with a gun. Perhaps it calls for even more resource, endurance, and knowledge. Certainly Captain C. W. R. Knight, the well-known ornithologist, needed all these things when he set out to get some “close-ups” of the golden eagle at home in a Scottish deer forest. He has just described how it was done. His first problem was to get a hiding-place from which he could see without being seen. Finally, he contrived to make one on a cliff-face within 14 feet of an eyrie. From his place of concealment he watched while the eaglets grew up. fed by their mother, and gained a great deal of information as to the family habits. Unfortunately, it does not seem to lave been a rery happy family. There were two eaglets —one male and one female and they quarelled even mor e bitterly than is usually he case with brothers and sisters. One ;quabble ended by the smaller of the wo—the male —being thrown out oi .he eyrie and killed -on the rocks at .he foot of the cliff. In the case of another eyrie. Caplin Knight had to sleep in his hid-.ng-place on the cliff in order to get the photographs he wanted. One .light there was a thunderstorm sc riolent that the whole cliff was shaken dv it. The thunder was accompanied by a downpour of rain, and the eyrie was dislodged from its place and fell It was caught by trees, and when Cap :ain Knight investigated he found [h e eaglets unhurt. At considerable danger to lumselt he climbed the cliff with the young birds and replaced them in their home. The mother eagle returned and fed them as. if nothing unusual had hap p^ned.