Michael Hobbs comments on Black Swifts at Point of Arches on the northwest
Washington coast:

>Surprising to me were the Black Swift over Point of Arches. I always
thought
> they were only at high altitudes during breeding season.

The Black Swift seems to have a very odd breeding distribution. The bulk of
the worlds population probably breeds in wet Pacific Northwest habitats,
especially those with nearby cliffs. However, the first Black Swift nest
ever found was on the central California coast (I believe Santa Cruz
County). The species has proven to be an uncommon, but regular breeder on
certain cliffs along the coast there. Surprisingly, this species is not
known to nest along the Oregon coast.

Peterson's Western field guide (Houghton Mifflin 1990) maps it as a
questionable breeder on the northwest Washington coast. The recently
published "Breeding Birds of Washington State: location data and predicted
distributions ( Seattle Audubon 1997)" states it is a breeder on the outer
coast but the evidence is slim (no nest found). Reading more closely, it
turns out no nest has been found in Washington.

I would wager it is a regular breeder along cliffs on the northwest
Washington coast; our ornithological community might needs a rock climber
to prove this!

Further south, Howell and Webb's Guide to Birds of Mexico and N. Central
America (Oxford 1995) also document its ditribution in Mexico: as an
"uncommon but local summer resident...nests in highlands, notably behind
waterfalls...in interior and on adjacent Pacific slope from west central
Chihuahua to Oaxaca, on Atlantic slope from Hildagoo to n. Oaxaca."

Andy Stepniewski
Wapato WA