hi all:

i dug back through the old messages and found this one regarding black
swifts:

Eric Horvath from Oregon has photographed an active Black Swift nest

at Ketcham Falls in the North Cascades and another with a dead chick

in it upstream from Emerald Pool Falls.


i recall thinking at the time how sad it was that such a rare chick was
found dead.

now i wonder whether the bird was, in fact, dead. accdg to the literature,
swift chicks in general, and black swifts in particular, go into cold
torpor when the parents are gone and can live up to ten days w/o food. it
might have been that horvath found a torpid chick rather than a dead one.
i recall in a prior century helping out on some mammal population studies
(mostly deer mice). we'd set box traps in the evening and come back in the
morning to mark and release the animals to see who we'd catch at a later
time. many of the rodents appeared dead as a stone, but if you put one in
your pocket, eventually the 'dead' critter would be resurrected. at that
point one faced the task of getting an irate animal w/ sharp teeth
(kangaroo rats fall directly into this category) out of a pocket without
harm to the capturee or the capturor. some of the dances attendant to such
activities were quite amusing.

thus, it seems apropos to mention to those who might see an apparently dead
swift chick, probably best to leave it alone as it may not be dead at all.

regards,

t
--
dave templeton
fall city, wa

crazydave65atgmaildaughtcom

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today; it's already tomorrow
in Australia." Charles Schultz
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