“In nesting the Chimney ’Sweeps’ seek out the smaller chimneys of dwelling houses, and usually only one pair occupies a single shaft. Short twigs are seized and snapped off by the bird’s beak in midflight, and these, after being rolled about in the copious saliva, are made fast to the bricks, a neat and homogeneous bracket being thus formed. This will be sufficient to support the half dozen crystal white eggs and the hissing squabs which follow, unless a premature fire or a long-continued rain dissolves the glue and tumbles the fabric into the grate.
“Sitting birds, when discovered, oftenest drop below the nest and hide, clinging easily with the tiny feet supported by the spiny tail. The male bird seldom pays any attention unless there are young, in which case he even brushes past the intruder and enters the nest in his eagerness to share the hour of danger. The young are rather slow in development and it requires, according to Mr. Otto Widmann, two months to rear a family of them. Usually only one brood is raised, but a second nesting is undertaken even as late as August if the first has proven unsuccessful” (Birds of Ohio).
Save in the matter of nesting, the Vaux Swift does not differ essentially in habit or appearance from the well-known Chimney Swift, referred to in the preceding paragraphs. It is, however, very much less common and is only of local distribution, chiefly in the lower mountain valleys. Local attachments are doubtless largely determined by the presence of large cottonwood timber, but the birds descend to the lowlands, especially after the close of the nesting season, in small roving parties, somewhat after the fashion of the Cloud Swifts, with which indeed they frequently associate. They have thus been regularly reported by West-side observers at Tacoma, Seattle, and Bellingham, and I have seen them at Blaine, and in the valleys of the Nooksack (at Glacier), Skagit, Nisqually (in Rainier National Park), and Quillayute Rivers. The only East-side records appear to be those from the north fork of the Ahtanum, in Yakima County, and the valley of the Stehekin, in Chelan County.
Vaux’s Swift with us nests only in the hollow recesses of tall dead cottonwood trees, where they glue a shallow bracket of broken twigs, cemented with hardened saliva, to the curving inner wall. In California, however, they are said to be adopting the ways of civilization, and are beginning to nest in chimneys, after the fashion of C. pelagica.
No. 161.
WHITE-THROATED SWIFT.
A. O. U. No. 425. Aeronautes melanoleucus (Baird).
Synonyms.—Rock Swift. Mountain Swift. Rocky Mountain Swift. White-throated Rock Swift.
Description.—Adults: Plumage black (variable, sooty brown to glossy black); forehead and line over eye paler; lore velvety black; chin, throat, breast, and belly, centrally, white—also outer edge of outer primary, tips of secondaries, lateral tail-feathers, and a conspicuous patch on flank, sometimes nearly meeting fellow across rump; bill black. Length 7.00 (177.8) or under; wing 6.50-7.00 (165.1-177.8); tail 2.65 (67.3).
Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size but larger to appearance; exceedingly rapid flight with flashing white underparts and flank patches distinctive.
Nesting.—“The nest is securely placed far in holes or crevices of rocks or indurated earths, usually at a great height; it is a saucer-like structure, about 5 × 2 inches, with a shallow cavity, made of various vegetable materials well glued together with saliva, and lined with feathers. Eggs several, in one instance 5, narrowly subelliptical, 0.87 × 0.52, white” (Coues). Season: May and June.
General Range.—Western United States from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, north to Montana, Idaho, and southern British Columbia (Okanagan Valley); south in winter to Guatemala.
Range in Washington.—Known only from the valley of the Columbia near Chelan, the Grand Coulee (near Cold Spring Lake), and the Cascade Pass.
Authorities.—Dawson, Auk, XIV., 1897, p. 175.
Specimens.—C.
Photo by the Author. Taken in Douglas County.
COLD SPRING LAKE.
WHITE-THROATED SWIFTS NEST ON THE PRECIPITOUS WALLS OF THE BUTTE.
Swift, swifter, swiftest, will best express the relations of our Washington Cypseli, where the positive degree is represented by the Vaux Swift, the comparative by the Black Cloud Swift, and the superlative by the White-throat. No one who is troubled with acrophobia, the fear of high places, should attempt to spy upon the nesting haunts of these Swifts from above; for when to the ordinary terrors of a sheer cliff, say a thousand feet in height, is added the hurtling passage of resentful Swifts flashing about like hurled scimetars, the situation will try the strongest nerve. Viewed from below, in the open air, the evolutions of these birds may be regarded with some degree of equanimity; but when a Swift dips toward the ground, or measures its speed across the face of some frowning precipice, one sees what a really frightful velocity is attained. There is no exact way of measuring this, but an estimate of five miles per minute would be well within the mark, and six not unreasonable. The bird, that is, would require only an hour to flit from Spokane to Aberdeen; or, it might breakfast at Osooyoos on the Forty-ninth Parallel, lunch in Chihuahua, and dine, a trifle late, in Panama.
This Rock Swift nests only in crevices and caves of the most inaccessible cliffs. Most of its hunting, however, is done in the upper air, where its lighter colors soon render it indistinguishable. It appears also to be less sociable than the other species upon the hunt, so that almost the only opportunities for careful study of it are afforded near the cliffs. Here there is much amorous pursuit, and the frequent sound of thrilling notes. The characteristic notes constitute a sort of war-cry, rather than song, and consist of a liquid descending scale of musical chuckling, or rubbing tones. The noise produced is much as if two pebbles were being fiercely rubbed together in a rapidly-filling jar of water.