How often do we stumble upon something significant without realizing it at first? Leading a bird watching group a few weeks ago I noticed a stream of White-throated Swifts emerging from a local box canyon. These swifts are small cigar-shaped birds with wings like boomerangs. Their scientific name, Aeronautes saxatalis, literally means, “sky sailor”, and their flying ability is unparalleled. Squeaky chattering is often the first sign of their presence as they swarm like swirling gnats at dizzying heights.
I did not conclude they had actually come out of the canyon as a starting point. I thought they had merely flown over the top from skies farther north, funneling through this corridor. A night or so later towards dusk, while birdwatching again in this same beautiful canyon, I was shocked by hundreds of swifts materializing out of nowhere. They circled around my head, then spiraled into the canyon, disappearing amongst the sentinel rock formations. By the time I reached the dead-end barrier of this canyon, there was not a swift in sight.
Sherlock here finally determined that this must be a regular roost site. Determined to ferret out the roost’s exact location, I visited the canyon an hour before sunset the following evening. Just 15 minutes before civil twilight, a single swift appeared. Then 10. Then 50. Then hundreds…all in a matter of minutes. Specks in the deep blue sky, the swifts swirled lower and lower, the air vibrating with the sound of hundreds of wings cutting through it. Although the bushes and trees stood motionless, it sounded like a substantial wind was blowing. On an unseen cue, one plunged into a ridiculously thin crack. In rapid fire succession, more followed until in just over a minute, 400 plus swifts had crammed into this cramped. impossible resting place chattering as they settled for the night.
Next night, along with husband, I filmed the spectacle. A week later, the swifts no longer arrived at dusk, having moved on to warmer climes. The video below does not do the event justice. Even husband exclaimed that this was one of the top two natural history events he had witnessed. The other was almost getting skewered by a massive, bugling elk that his buddy had called in…
White-throated Swift
