Nature Done Wright

Kurt Muenz and I hung out at the Chimney Swift Roost in Ridgewood yesterday evening and talked with The Record's ace videographer and photographer Tom Franklin, who is working on a video about the roost.

I will post a link when it becomes available.

We saw roughly 800 Chimney Swifts last night. Also saw a Red-tail fly in to a tree near the roost, hunt from the perch for about 30 seconds, and then nail a chipmunk. That hawk can hunt!

Kurt's full report follows. (Thanks, Kurt!)

Very interesting evening. Only a handful of swifts were seen around the
chimney up until 5 minutes after sunset. Then within moments the sky
filled with the bulk of tonight's contingent. That's the latest
(relative to sunset) arrival time I've experienced. Some or all of them
may have been there earlier, but at higher elevation where they would
have been difficult to spot in the overcast sky.

These birds proceeded to put on an excellent flying show and what
appeared to be the last one entered at 6:55, 20 minutes after sunset.
I turned off and folded up the camcorder/tripod, when suddenly another
large contingent arrived. All told there were about 800 swifts including
the 158 that Jim Wright and I counted after I shut off the tape.

So there's been a substantial drop since Friday's 1400, but 800 is still
a lot of birds for this late (Oct.4) date. Now, it will be interesting
to see when the roost empties. Most year's in my experience it's been
during the 2nd week of Oct. But in 2009, the last swifts sighted were on
Oct. 22.