I wanted to provide some experiences observed so far looking for Black Swifts
at waterfalls:

The first comes from Larry:
Yesterday I climbed up to Bridal Veil.? Another northern exposure but
this one looked good, real good.? I lay down on my back at the base of
the falls and didn't move for more than 70 minutes.? At 9:26 one made a
single circle in front of the falls and I got it Zeissed? just in time
to see it jump into what I had figured was the prime spot.

At 9:31 another one came swifting around and in the next five minutes I
got six glimpses.? The last time it was close to the water.? I think we
can put the total at one pair.? This probably isn't going to be easy.
It may be that these birds are only going to come home about or after
the time you can no longer see them. I was at the falls and looking 7:35 to
9:40.

General Observations from several people: Unlike the experience Larry had, at
some falls we are finding that birds can be in the sky above the falls for
quite some time in the evening, and then may be coming down into the falls when
it is near dark. If the viewing point is some distance from the falls this
makes it unlikely that the birds can actually be seen going to the falls. Thats
OK. Getting the best count of birds in the evening sky above the falls will
be sufficient. However, judging from Larry's comments, staying as late as
possible to see may be necessary to determine if swifts are using the falls,
since he did not detect them at one falls until almost 9:30!

My experience in North Cascades National Park: The Park staff along with a
Mexican biologist brought up to work on the Black Swift project (Park Flight
Program grant), USFS staff, and several volunteers from the North Cascades
Institute spent a couple nites last week looking at falls. One evening while
looking at a falls along the Skagit River between Newhalem and Marblemount, we
counted over 150 Black Swifts flying downstream (well 90% were in that direction)
between 7:30-9:30pm. It was a regular procession with no more than 10 minutes
between sightings during the entire 2 hrs. Combine this with the fact that a
couple years ago, Bob Kuntz during his BBS survey along this same stretch in
June recorded about 200 Black Swifts flying UPSTREAM in the early morning
hours. Based on what little we know about Black Swift biology, they nest and
roost at waterfalls, make few if any visits during the day to the falls (depends
on reproductive stage), and are most relaible to be seen there in the evening
when they come to feed young/roost. Thus, the above observations and our
knowledge of their biology would indciate that there is a significant population at
some waterfalls downstream from where we were. The Park folks and volunteers
will be looking at several waterfalls up Cascades Lakes Highway this week.
We hope to solve this mystery soon!

Thanks for all your help and let me know what you find......please send in
forms.

Bob Altman
American Bird Conservancy
Northern Pacific Rainforest BCR Coordinator
311 NE Mistletoe
Corvallis, OR 97330
phone/fax - 541 745-5339
baltman at abcbirds.org