Hello Tweets,

You?ve probably recently read or heard of the barn swallows learning to
fly in front of a motion detector to open a door at a Home Depot in
Minneapolis.?The birds had nested inside the building and in order to
feed their nestlings they had learned the trick of circling in front of
the detectors to open the doors in order to gain ingress and egress to
the nest site.

http://nature.gardenweb.com/forums/load/bird/msg060122233309.html

This reminded us of another swallow feat.?We were camping at Dunk
Island National Park in northern Queensland, Australia and decided to
take a reef trip from Mission Beach.?Once aboard our boat we noticed
the mud nest of swallows in a corner of the cabin.?As we started
cruising toward the Great Barrier Reef a pair of Welcome
Swallows?(Hirundo neoxena) flew back and forth from shore in order to
feed the young in the nest.?After we lost sight of land the swallows
stopped coming out to the boat.

We spent several hours on the reef and in the late afternoon, as soon
as we spotted the shoreline again, the swallows returned to the boat
and continued to feed their young until we once again reached shore.

On another subject, we were kayaking in the vicinity of Deer Harbor on
Orcas Island Friday morning.?There are usually large numbers of Pigeon
Guillemots at the entrance to Deer Harbor.?In the past we have observed
their breeding and nesting behavior on the ledges of the cliff west and
across from the Deer Harbor Marina.?

?During the past two years a mega-house was being constructed on the
top of the cliff with the appurtenant construction noise and activity.
During this time we noticed that the Guillemots seemed to have deserted
this area as a breeding site.

?The house is now completed and Friday we were happy to observe that
the Guillemots are back and several pairs were observed carrying food
to some obvious nesting sites in crevices in the cliff below the new
house.?Good News For A Change!

?Don and Sandi McVay
Seattle
dmcvay at cmc.net

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