Swifts

fractal9091 and I had the good fortune to time our vacation to match the Vaux's swifts brief time in Eugene, during their migration to South America. We went to watch their nightly ritual, when after having hunted for insects all day at the riverbank, they congregate in the air above Agate Hall, then settle inside its chimney for the night. There are more than 10,000 of them, and it's quite impressive. Maybe a dozen people came to watch, most with cameras. Two Cooper's hawks perched atop the chimney made the birds reluctant to enter, and the vast flock of swifts circled and dove through the air like a great school of fish, for about half an hour, until the hawks flew away as dusk fell. Then the swifts began to focus their circling around the chimney, like a great whirlwind, and a few at a time entered, some quickly, some fluttering down like leaves, until all but a few dozen birds remained in the sky as it became too dark to see.

My photos couldn't possibly capture the scope of the event - I'll take a look in the next day or two, to see if any are worth posting.