Dear Rachel and Tweeters,

This colony is well known to Skagit birders, but it hasn't been known for all that long.

In the 1990's, we Skagit birders used to spend quite a bit of time searching, just to come up with a Bank Swallow or two for the old year list. Keith and Jan Wiggers had found a reliable spot up the Sauk River, not far north of the Snohomish-Skagit line, north of Darrington (Sauk Prairie Road). That required a long drive, followed by an intense search. One's neck got sore fast. One had to swivel one's head around and around in a circle, trying to spot one Bank Swallow among all the Rough-wings!

At that time, most serious birders in Skagit were skeptical of Bank Swallow reports from "downriver." Oftentimes, young Tree Swallows look a bit like Banks, so the occasional Bank Swallow reported from Fir Island or Samish Flats in the fall were taken in with a grain of salt.

Then, some time around the year 2000 or so, Bank Swallows started showing up at Corkindale Creek, just west of Marblemount. By the early years of the present decade, it became a lot easier to find Bank Swallows in Skagit County, both upriver and downriver. It is now reasonable to expect them in places such as Rockport, Cockreham Island, Butler Flats, Fir Island, Channel Drive, and so forth. In fact, it often happens that the Bank Swallow ends up on a birder's day list, while Cliff or Rough-winged is missed, if it's a casual day's birding and not a "big-day" effort.

As far as I know, it took the illustrious Wayne Weber to discover the colony on the south side of the Skagit River, near Concrete. I believe that was in June of 2003.

I used to live in Concrete, and would bird the area near that sandy cliff in the 1990's fairly regularly, but never did see any Bank Swallows there. It is possible that the Bank Swallows were nesting there, and that they went undetected, but that is doubtful.

In "Breeding Birds of Washington State" by Smith, Mattocks, and Cassidy (the breeding bird atlas published in 1997), there is nothing to indicate Bank Swallows breeding in Skagit County--or anywhere else in Western Washington. In fact, the book states that an 1897 record from Cape Disappointment was the "one historic known breeding record" in Western Washington. Furthermore, the South Skagit was birded intensively during the 1990's, as part of the research for that breeding bird atlas. Since none were found, it seems reasonable to assume that the Bank Swallow colony near Concrete started up sometime in the late 1990's to early 2000's.

To account for the earlier sightings of Bank Swallows near Darrington, one might imagine a small colony along the Sauk River. Alternatively, there might have been a colony at Corkindale, but it seems to me that birds would have been seen in Marblemount if they'd been breeding there. It's a long way from Corkindale Creek to Sauk Prairie.

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch ?

Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA ? garybletsch at yahoo.com ? ?


--- Rachel <RachelWL at msn.com> schrieb am Mo, 21.7.2008:

> Von: Rachel <RachelWL at msn.com>
> Betreff: [Tweeters] Bank Swallow colony near Concrete, pelican at Discovery Park
> An: tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Datum: Montag, 21. Juli 2008, 8:03
> Skagit birders probably know about this already, but
> yesterday, 7/19, I
> was surprised to find a sizable Bank Swallow colony high up
> on a steep
> slope on the South Skagit Highway, across the road from the
> Skagit
> River. There were over a hundred burrows (not all active)
> with about 30
> Bank Swallows and a couple of Violet-greens going in and
> out. This spot
> is about three miles east of the Dalles Bridge in Concrete.
> Is this
> colony well-known?
>
> On 7/16, I took a Birdingpal from California to Discovery
> Park in
> Seattle. It was pretty quiet, but we did see one Brown
> Pelican flying
> past the lighthouse.
>
> Rachel Lawson
> Seattle
> rachelWL at msn.com_______________________________________________
> Tweeters mailing list
> Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters


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