Hello, Tweeters,

This evening (5/30/10, 8 p.m.), while walking in the rain with my
wife Barb along Marine Drive in Dungeness, we witnessed a wonderful
fly-by of Black Swifts, all traveling from east to west along the
bluffs and over the fields just south of Dungeness Bay. A mixture of
swallows also foraged over the fields, making for a nice comparison.
There were at least 40-50 Black Swifts in the flocks, possibly twice
that many, as they passed in small groups over a period of several
minutes, sometimes high up by the clouds and sometimes flying as low
as 30 to 40 feet off the ground. The weather was low stratus
overcast and drizzly rain with fairly calm winds, causing them to add
more flaps to their usual soaring, but their size, great sickle-
shaped wings, and dark bodies really stood out. They appeared to
just keep going to the west, out of sight. The most Black Swifts
I've ever seen at one time.

Once we got to Dungeness Landing Park (aka the old Dungeness Bay
Oysterhouse, which has been removed), we heard some strange raucous
calls, looked up, and watched a light-morph Parasitic Jaeger chasing
a Caspian Tern very close to shore. The jaeger got the fish and
headed straight north, towards Dungeness Spit.

From the mainland it looks like the Dungeness Spit Caspian Tern
colony is still quite reduced from last year's size, when it was
apparently abandoned in mid-season due to likely eagle harassment.
The terns that are here now are doing lots of courtship flights. We
watched today as an eagle cruised over the colony and put up all the
terns in a panic flight, which, considering all the eagles in
Dungeness Bay, must be a common occurrence.

Bob Boekelheide
Sequim