Dear Tweets,

OK, I can see the vultures circling. . . .

My pre-dawn mystery bird must have been a violet-green swallow, not a Vaux's
swift. I returned to the site yesterday morning, six days after the
original sighting and spent fifteen minutes listening and straining to see
at 4:40 am, in somewhat better light this time. I observed a bird that both
sounded and looked like a VGSW and --confound it-- a large bat zigzagging
all over the place. Alas, no swift.

I also checked the records and found that I had recorded a violet-green
swallow there in 1990 and one a half-mile downstream in 1986.

Thanks to Kelly Cassidy for prompting the discussion in the first place and
to Michael Price for setting me straight in the most tactful way imaginable.

Darrel Whipple
Rainier, Oregon
dwhipple at columbia-center.org

>
>Violet-green Swallows Tachycineta thalassina are the earliest risers,
>usually 30 to 45 minutes ahead of the next species outta the sack: American
>Robins Turdus migratiorius.
>
>>But what would a swallow be doing up
>>when all the bugs are too cold to fly?
>
>Feeding on flying bugs that don't know that it's too cold to fly. '-)
>Likely moth-feeding (moths flight-muscles generate a fair amount of heat, I
>read somewhere), with or in spite of local bats. The ones outside my place
>start up usually an hour before sunrise and even well before first light,
>and spend the first twenty minutes or so on wires outside my window in
>motormouth mode, sounding faintly querulous and agitated. Well, if we had
>nothing to look forward to but eating bugs all day, we'd likely be prone to
>complaint as well.
>
>The sound they utter first is a a rather hollow, almost metallic, clicking,
>sometimes doubled or sometimes run together, always reminiscent to me of
>Captain Queeg and his ball-bearings.
>
>then I read Darrell Whipple's post...
>
>>Denise Caldwell and I had a similar mystery bird at the first stop of the
>>Bunker Hill Breeding Bird Survey near Longview, WA, on June 15th. This
>>chitterer seemed to be in the alder trees but constantly moving; then we saw
>>the bird against the sky at less than 100 feet and were sure from its
>>distinctive flight that it was a swift, guessing it was Vaux's. We spent 10
>>minutes observing this bird apparently feeding in the air (on what?) between
>>4:40 and 4:50 am (when we had to start the survey and move on).
>>Then--surprise--we had another one at Stop #2, a half-mile down the road.
>>Both sites are in mixed forest along Abernathy Creek at less than 500 feet
>>elevation.
>
>...and the following idea occurred. If you look at VG Swallows, they spend a
>significant amount of time flying in a way that makes them resemble Vaux's
>Swift (VASW) Chaetura vauxi, and they have a territorial display flight
>which makes them almost impossible to separate from VASW. As they're both
>cavity-nesters, they'd likely be in competition for available nesting sites.
>If they're both crepuscular foragers, perhaps the VGSW's early-morning
>vocalisings are proclaiming territory to any prospecting swifts (which
>arrive later in nothbound migration to find VGSW's already here) which might
>be in the area. They do sorta sound like a massive swift. Just a theory,
>poorly expressed.
>
>Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
>Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
>mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
> Aphra Behn (1640-1689)
>
>
>