Harold William Menke

“ By throwing oats on only one spot, and that close to the window, I soon gathered quite a flock of Horned Larks, who came regularly every morning to feed from the constantly replenished supply. Finally, after a week of gloomy, dark weather, a cloudless sky offered especially good chances for a photograph of my feathered friends. This time I placed the camera on the window-sill. Maneuvres attendant upon focusing and inserting a plate-holder, of course, frightened the birds away. ”

“ This part of Wyoming,—at all times dreary and lonely, is strikingly so during winter months. Then snow fills the ravines and lends a level, prairie-like aspect to the landscape. I doubt if there is to be found anywhere a more desolate country ”

“ A few Yellow-headed Blackbirds were attracted by the food supply I furnished, and I made several negatives of them. The Yellow-heads were more wary than the Horned Larks, and flew away at the slightest disturbance. Only a few at a time gathered beneath the window, while the others perched on fence-posts at a safe distance and kept watch.
But it remained for a Northern Shrike to add ‘insult to injury,’ by seizing a dead mouse I had placed on a post and alighting on the camera with its capture! ”