There has been so much worth sharing on my blog this summer, but this moment just stopped me in my track and really FORCED me to share.
My favorite time of year is here. When the Vaux's Swifts - in the thousands - roost in the old chimney of the abandoned high school next door. The Swifts start to appear every year in late August, when we can just see small flocks of them spiraling in the sky, chipping softly, almost mistaken for the sound of a hummingbird. And this year - as of two nights ago - the Swifts started to appear in massive numbers to roost in the Old Oregon City High School. They rush in great circles over our house, joining in a tornado over the tall, neglected chimney. And if we sit on our roof, they literally whiz right over our heads. They look like cigars with wings. We can barely see them properly through our binoculars, because they only appear just at sunset, and they move so fast, wings beating rapidly.
From 7:00 to 8:00 we can hear the ever increasing chitter of Swifts as they gather over the neighborhood. One might easily mistake them to be bats. Last year, we informed a few confused observers that they were not bats, but birds. And then we bored them with the details, such as the curious fact that they only perch on vertical surfaces...
Tonight, Keith and I enjoyed one of the few remaining nights that we will have to enjoy dinner together on a weeknight, since school starts on the 24th. We made sweet potato burritos and sat in our backyard to watch the amazing sunset display.
Hummingbirds, in what could only have been an attempt to steal the spotlight from the Swifts, made appearances to our feeders while we gazed at the dizzying mass of birds overhead. But the Swifts - their aerial acrobatics, moving in coordination, spinning like smoke reversing into the chimney instead of out - could not be upstaged. The last Swift disappeared into the chimney just before the first star appeared in the sky.
What a show!
Swarms of Swifts! Turn up the volume!
I captured a hummingbird in this shot. He appears for a sip of nectar at the feeder.
Close-up view through the binoculars. They all went silent for a moment as they hurried to pile into the chimney, racing the sunset.
