Subject: [Tweeters] reply to Caren's swallow question
Date: Jan 16 07:15:11 2009
From: Connie Sidles - constancesidles at gmail.com


Hey tweets, I have seen winter swallows at the Fill in years past -
always in ones or twos only, of course. The species has always been
Barn Swallow, but I suppose almost any bird can decide to stick around
our (usually) mild climate if it thinks this is a good place to find
food. Before the snow storms hit, there were two Savannah Sparrows at
the Fill who evidently thought they wouldn't bother this year with
migration. Who needs it? I haven't seen them since the snow melted, so
maybe they decided to head south after all. Better late than never.

By the way, yesterday afternoon was simply glorious at the Fill. There
were nine Trumpeter Swans feeding in the bay, and then at the very end
of the day, the three immatures came floating by to join the flock.
Hordes of Yellow-rumped Warblers were dancing around in the grass
tussocks in the fields and foraging in the the bushes and trees
everywhere. There must have been an insect hatch. A bird ball of
European Starlings was doing formation-flying in the sky - this may be
the only thing they do that I enjoy. Otherwise, if you asked me to say
something positive about starlings, I'd have to hem and haw, and then
I'd probably cough up something like, "They are very versatile eaters."

The Red-tailed Hawk who has made the Fill its home made a big mistake
yesterday. It came out of seclusion to hunt for rats at the edge of
the cattails along the southern fringe of the Loop Trail at dusk, just
as the crows began gathering for their nightly staging in the Dime
Parking Lot. One of the incoming crows spotted the hawk and gave the
alarm. Instantly, crows began to converge on the hapless hawk, who I
think must have just caught its lovely rat for the day. The hawk stood
the harassment for a short while, then took off, chased by what looked
like a thousand crows. Shades of Alfred HItchcock.- Connie, Seattle

constance



On Jan 15, 2009, at 2:06 PM, travelgirl fics wrote:

> cliff swallows are much more likely in that area, and along the
> bridges through the area, but as gary points out, the fact they are
> there in january is (to me) pretty odd, especially given our recent
> weather issues...
>
> does anyone know if we have a small colony that sticks around all
> year now, or are these simply first-winter birds that never got the
> migration memo?
>
> 00 caren
> http://realistatlarge.blogspot.com/
> george davis creek, north fork
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 14:02, Gary Luhm <gluhm at comcast.net> wrote:
> I saw a dozen or more swallows on the south side of Foster Island
> in Seattle while kayaking Wednesday (1/14) afternoon. I got pretty
> good looks at them and they all had a lot of rufous on the head and
> squareish tails. I decided they were all almost certainly Cliff
> Swallows. That they were here in January struck me as very unusual.
>
> Gary Luhm Photography
> Specializing in sea kayaking, kayak surfing, birding, mountain
> scenics,
> tidepools
> e-mail: gluhm at garyluhm.net
> website: www.garyluhm.net
> 425-828-6594
>
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