ML110208891
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Juvenile, Unknown sex - X
Observation details
This morning I was greeted with another fledgling inside the building, hanging on a window screen. I snapped a few quick photos, then was able to grab it and release it outdoors, and it flew away over Green Lake. What followed was quite interesting... The flying bird was soon joined by a couple of other swifts, and at one point there were four flying together – making swoops and circles not far away. I tried to shoot a few photos, and managed to get one that appeared to be the swift I had just released, since the picture shows that it has cobwebs trailing off its tail and wing! A couple of other photos showed birds that were obviously adults, due to the heavy feather molt in their wings. A few minutes later I watched as two of the swifts suddenly swooped down toward the building and plummeted down the chimney – separated by only about 2-3 feet! I immediately went inside and shot a few photos up through the fireplace, and could tell that least one of the swifts that had dropped inside the chimney was the same captured/released fledgling that had cobwebs hanging from it! Before I had been able to get set up to shoot photos, I’d heard some fluttering inside the chimney, so it’s possible that one of the birds that had dropped inside was an adult – but it may have taken off again before it could get any pictures. Besides the fledgling that had cobwebs on it (which was clinging to the masonry), two nestlings were sitting on the nest, so it seemed unlikely that they had been ones that had just dropped inside the chimney. Later the fledgling fluttered and moved up to where it ended up clinging onto the left side of the nest.
Technical information
- Model
- Canon PowerShot SX60 HS
- ISO
- 100
- Focal length
- 54.3 mm
- Flash
- Flash fired, auto, red-eye reduction
- f-stop
- f/5.6
- Shutter speed
- 1/60 sec
- Dimensions
- 1120 pixels x 800 pixels
- Original file size
- 274.6 KB