27 July 08
Bank Swallow
One of the most exciting things about doing this Bigby is that birds I’ve seen before but usually briefly and on the way to somewhere else have become a focal point. This is certainly the case with bank swallows, which I’ve seen here and there but never spent much time on.
This is a small, dainty swallow with a brown back and head and a dark brown band across the chest. It’s easy to confuse it with a juvenile tree swallow, especially in flight. But today we had them sitting side-by-side for luxurious oodles of time at the Yolo Bypass. Birds would take off and return, the bank swallows showing off their two-toned underwings and delicate jizz compared to the more robust and more powerful tree swallows.
We now know the call of the cliff swallow well, having had two pairs build nests in our car port (I think they were all seen off by house sparrows); so when a bird called high overhead we confidently said “cliff.”
Swallow school: long overdue, well worth the effort.
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That’s so cool – to know a bird so well that you can identify by just a call. I’m trying to add to my list of birds I can identify like that. Lovely sketches!