I too was a bit surprised to find swallows at Phantom Lake (Lake Hills
Greenbelt, Bellevue) yesterday morning since through September migrants have
been very much hit or miss (mostly miss) at this location. Yesterday (Oct
1), not a lot, but involving THREE species including one CLIFF SWALLOW plus
Barn Swallow (4) and Violet-green (12-15). Having not seen a Cliff Swallow
at all in the LHG since mid-August nor mention of such elsewhere for the
past month or so, I checked the bar graphs in Hunn (2012). I didn't realize
Cliff Swallows have all usually checked out of King Co by late August and
are rare at best into the first week of September. Otherwise, there is but
one previous October King County record for Cliff Swallow (looks to be
about Oct 20 or so?).

Of course after the fact and the bird long gone I presume, Cave Swallow
came to mind. Honestly, I did in fact get a quite good look at the bird (10X
bins & scope) and the bird at Phantom Lake definitely was NOT a Cave
Swallow, rather just a single late running Cliff Swallow.

Richard Rowlett
Bellevue (Eastgate), WA


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Bob Sundstrom writes Oct 1, 2013:

>> A mixed concentration of 80-100 swallows were foraging over upper
Scatter Ck. around noon today - mostly Violet-green, with some Barn and a few
Tree swallows.