47 Photographs of Mid-Atlantic Woodland and Shorebirds

(Delaware / New Jersey), 1958. Unbound. Near Fine. A collection of 47 mounted photographs by the New Jersey-based photographer Benjamin Hiatt: 46 black & white prints, ranging in size from approximately 8" x 10" to 11" x 14", and one 8" x 10" color print. All are tipped onto artists boards, with some additionally in mat frames, most are Signed and captioned in pencil. A near fine group that features many beautiful close-up shots of wild birds in flight, on the surf, and at their nests: the Snowy Egret, Brown Pelican, Laughing Gull, Black Skimmer, and Piping Plover. Also a series of rare close-up portraits taken in the late 1920s, of a Spotted Ground-thrush and a Great Horned Owl at their nests, and another small set of coastline images. Just over half appear to have been taken in the 1950s in the vicinity of Tuckerton Bay on New Jersey's Atlantic Coast and the nearby Bass River State Forest. The rest, dating back to the 1920s, were taken in the vicinity of Sparta, New Jersey, near the Delaware Water Gap, and Delaware City, Delaware. These include three prints of a Spotted Ground-thrush perched on its nest, five prints of Great Horned Owls, and two dramatic prints of a Brown Pelican: standing at ease high up in a large nest, gazing directly at the camera; and in flight. All 47 photographs capture Hiatt's "ambition to photograph wild birds at home," which he first described in "A Study of Great Horned Owls in the Delaware City Heronry," published in a 1929 issue of the ornithological journal, *Cassinia*. He also published accounts of his important sightings in New Jersey, Delaware, and Florida in *The Auk*. A fine representative collection of Hiatt's best prints spanning a thirty year period. (Inventory #: 376137)