A couple of years ago I visited the North Seattle Community
College pond at dusk. Looking up in the fading light, I
thought I was looking at bats, but then it was clear they
were barn swallows.

As I stood on the south bank, suddenly hundreds of them came
swooping down and flying directly past me, right past my head,
and landed on several bushes on the east edge for the night.
I would guess at least several hundred.

It was, as we used to say, farout! to have birds swooping past
me like that, almost like flying through me.

It was the same kind of magical feeling we got when we vistied
Big Bend on a hot day, walking down a path (reports of a cranky
cougar in the area) and came upon hundreds of small blue and
yellow butterflies taking up water/minerals from a muddy spot
in the trail.

As we tried to pass around them, they flew up and we were
surrounded by hundreds of butterflies. It was like being
in Fantasia.


Douglas F. Daily
ddaily at u.washington.edu
UW Medical Center Patient Care Svcs
System Administrator, Box 356152
Seattle WA 98195