Subject: [Tweeters] Eclipse bird behavior
Date: Aug 23 12:50:51 2017
From: Larry Schwitters - leschwitters at me.com


What about birds species that fly all day long?

Down in Battle Ground our Vaux?s Happening project has a residence that some migrations is used as a roost by up to 350 Vaux?s Swifts. During the eclipse here?s what the owner saw "Between 10: 20 and 10:40 AM we saw 5 of our swifts enter the chimney? They didn?t come out until 12:55. This is very unusual in good weather and the owner has never seen this behavior before.

We got a better one.

Cindy Easterson and her daughter Hanna decided to check out the Wagner roost during the eclipse. Monroe is a long ways from totality and I figured it would take that total lights out sort of event to affect these birds. Not sure that I got the times exact but at 10:00 there was not a swift to be seen (but a lot of them were still inside the chimney). Ten minutes later about 200 showed up and acted as they do as sunset approaches. A few went in and the rest went away as the moon began uncovering the sun. The Wagner chimney had lots of birds inside the bricks until 12:48. Cindy said she was aware of a distinct drop in temperature and the camera IR kicked on for one 15 second video clip.

We still can use some help with our Vaux?s Happening Project. Try it. You?ll like it.

Larry Schwitters
Issaquah