Taken near Spokane. Photo by F. S. Merrill.
EGGS OF WESTERN NIGHTHAWK, IN SITU.
During migrations scores of these birds are sometimes seen moving aloft in loose array and, customarily at this season, silent. While not at any time strictly gregarious, favorable conditions are likely to attract considerable numbers to a given spot. I have seen scores at a time winging noiselessly to and fro over the tranquil waters of Brook Lake, and once I saw a company of not less than two hundred executing a grand march with bewildering evolutions, in a Yakima pasture. The date in the last-mentioned instance was August 10th, and it is more likely that the birds had discovered some notable event in the insect world, than that they themselves were preparing to migrate.
Taken near Spokane. Telephoto by W. H. Wright.
WESTERN NIGHTHAWK AT MIDDAY.
The eggs of the Nighthawk are heavily mottled with slaty and other tints, which render them practically invisible to the searching eye, even tho they rest upon the bare ground or, as oftener, upon an exposed lava ledge. Except during the very warmest hours (when the sun’s rays might addle them) and the coolest (when they might become chilled), the sitting bird is likely to rest beside her eggs instead of on them. The young birds when hatched place great reliance upon their protective coloration, and even permit the fondling of the hand rather than confess the defect of their fancied security. The old bird, meanwhile has fluttered away over the ground with uncertain wing and drooping tail to drop at last on the very point of death. Or failing in this ruse, she is charging about in mid air with plaintive cries. Look upon the babies for the last time, for they will be spirited away before your return,—borne off, it is said, between the thighs of the parent bird.
Micropodidæ—The Swifts
No. 159.
BLACK SWIFT.
A. O. U. No. 422. Cypseloides niger borealis (Kennerly).
Synonyms.—Cloud Swift. Northern Black Cloud Swift.
Description.—Adults: Sooty black; feathers of extreme chin, anterior portion of lores, forecrown, lining of wings, abdomen, sides, crissum, and under tail-coverts, narrowly skirted with white. Bill, feet, and eyes black. Length about 7.00 (177.8); wing 6.50 (165.1); tail 2.09 (53).
Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size but appearing larger; long wings and rapid flight, cloud-haunting habits with color and size distinctive.
Nesting.—Nest: in crannies of cliffs; reported by Bendire from the breaks of the Columbia in Douglas County. Eggs: unknown. Season: presumably June.
General Range.—Western North America from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, north thru British Columbia to southwestern Alaska; partially nomadic, erratic, and far-ranging; winters south to Central America.
Range in Washington.—Summer resident in the higher Cascades and (presumably) the Olympics; appears sporadically at lower levels, chiefly west of the Cascade Mountains.
Migrations.—Spring: Seattle, May 16, 1905. Fall: Seattle, September 20, 1907; October 7, 1905; Tatoosh Island, June 4, 1907.
Authorities.—Cypseloides borealis, Kennerly, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. IX., Nov. 1857, 202; fide Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX., 1858, p. 143. Rh. D¹. Ra. B. E.
Specimens.—Prov. C. E.
No other bird of equal prominence in the North American ornis has so successfully eluded the investigation of the curious. Of equal prominence, I say, for on occasion the birds do exhibit themselves at close quarters with every appearance of frankness. And it is precisely because they do occasionally stoop to our level, that we long to follow them as they sweep the clouds or hasten back at a thought to their mountain fastnesses.
Cloud Swifts hunt in great straggling companies, and when one of them has attracted attention by swooping near the ground, and the eyes are lifted, a dozen others may be noted in the neighborhood, and a hundred more in the sky, up, up to the limit of vision. Certain atmospheric conditions, especially a drizzling rain, may impel the whole company to seek the lower levels, and hundreds may be seen at once hawking over the townsite, or, better yet, over the surface of a lake, as Whatcom, or Washington. But on brighter days, and ordinarily, the passing throng occupies the whole heavens, and a bird seen darting across a distant cloud may in another instant descend to the tree-tops. Altho not quite so speedy as the White-throated Swift, there is no bird whose aerial evolutions convey such a sense of power and unfettered freedom as do those of this veritable sky-scraper.