Dear Tweeters,

I accidentally deleted a post from a few days ago, but wished to add my two cents; I cannot remember who it was that wrote about swallows being vulernable to ground predators at certain times.

A few years ago, I watched a cat take several swallows right out of the air. It was in near place called al Fura'a Dam, in western Saudi Arabia.

There was about an acre of some grasslike crop, about fifty cm tall, and the swallows were gliding over it, catching flies. I think they were Barn Swallows, but there might have been another species or two involved. The cat would lie in wait in the tall grass, and leap into the air as a swallow came over. I saw the cat snag more than one bird this way, over the course of an hour.

Yours truly,


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