Subject: [Tweeters] Monroe swifts
Date: Jun 10 10:58:14 2011
From: Larry Schwitters - lpatters at ix.netcom.com


Tweeters,

The official nightly count of roosting Vaux's Swifts at Monroe Wagner
Elementary School ends Saturday. They have documented just over
150,000 individual roostings this northbound migration. There are
about twenty swifts huddled together inside the 70 year old brick
chimney at this moment. You can get a peep at
http://wdfw.wa.gov/wildwatch/vauxcam/video_chimney.html

And speaking of wildlife "life moments", Jim Rettig and I swapped out
the microphone inside the chimney yesterday. After about 30 minutes
of fumbling with wires and deeply inhaling the stench of deep swift
poop I heard a cheep-cheep and a single swift flew up from the bottom
of the chimney and landed just out of reach. It cocked its head to
the side and we looked each other in the eye. It then lifted like a
helicopter out of it's shelter into the open sky.

Swifts are going out now.

Larry Schwitters
Issaquah
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20110610/af3be100/attachment.htm