fifty feet, we found one hundred and ninety nests, containing about three hundred birds and half as many eggs not yet hatched.
That night we camped opposite the cormorant rookery and just below what is known as the crater. The next day we rowed on south past Rattlesnake Island. In the afternoon we made camp across from another large rookery where the cormorants and pelicans were nesting. This island held two hundred and fifty cormorant nests—about two hundred and seventy-five young birds and two hundred eggs. The cormorant nests were built up of sticks, but the pelicans simply made a depression in the sand for their eggs.
This was the only colony of pelicans we found after cruising for two weeks on Tule Lake, altho we had seen a flock of several hundred birds that fished about the Lake and roosted together at night on one of the sandbars. They were very likely last year's birds and being immature, had not yet begun to nest.
When we crossed over to Lower Klamath Lake, we found it very different from the south end of Tule Lake, where we had fairly good places to camp. Extending for several miles out from the main shore was a seemingly endless area of
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herd of young pelicans; note the tule-thatched blind at right, from which the camera was operated in obtaining more intimate life-studies
floating tule islands, between which flowed a network of channels. These islands furnished good homes for the great flocks of pelicans that return each spring to live about these lakes and rivers that teem with fish. The tules had grown up for generations. The heavy growth of each year shoots up thru the dead stalks of the preceding season till it forms a fairly good floating foundation. On the top of this the pelicans had perched and trodden down the tules till they formed a surface often strong enough to support a man. But it was like walking on the crust of the snow, for you never knew just when it would break thru. However, these treacherous islands were the only camping places we had during the two weeks we cruised the Lower Klamath.
We rowed on among these islands and found the pelican colonies scattered along for about two miles. There were eight or ten big rookeries, each containing from four to six hundred birds. Besides, there were about fifteen others that had all the way from fifty to two hundred birds. The birds nested a few feet apart on these dry beds, each laying from one to three eggs.
The pelican season begins in April after the snow and ice have melted, and
