Subject: Re: Vaux's Swift Query
Date: Apr 26 14:13:23 1997
From: Janet Hardin - wings at olympus.net


Re: Vaux's Swift arrival times --

Thanks, Jack, for the feedback. And thanks, M Price, for responding as
well, with your excellent records of arrival times. You made a valid point
when you cautioned

>that even quite experienced birders can get fooled (sometimes much
>earlier in the season) by Violet-Green Swallows (VGSW) in 'stiff-wing'
>territorial and sexual display.

That's precisely why those of us who have helped train Marbled Murrelet
surveyors are concerned with making certain that observers know the
difference. Even though for a few years I thought it was *obvious* that
murrelets and swifts had very different flight styles, I finally saw a
couple of swifts flying as a pair and behaving much more like murrelets can
in flight. Fortunately something registered in my mind as not-quite-right,
and I kept my eyes on them a couple moments longer until they finally
resumed "normal" swift flight. My Inner Birder had to eat humble pie and
since then I've used the story in training as a cautionary tale. Even
though murrelets literally "fly like 60" in direct flight, they also fly in
loops and circles over the forest, and are sometimes up quite high. In such
events it is crucial that an observer be familiar with wing movements and
flight habits of other species which may also be present.

Thanks - I'll go out looking for swifts now .. :)

-- Janet Hardin
Port Townsend, WA
wings at olympus.net