ML619675633
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
Was not looking for more swifts today but first flock flew right overhead on my way back from river so started watching for them. Most in big flocks today separated by several minutes. The long sickle-shaped wings and long tails-forked on some birds (only males have forked tails) were easy to see with many birds right overhead! So the first were 38 @ 0709, then 50 @ 0715, 10 @ 0719, 45 @ 0736, 2 high to east @ 0743, 140(!) @ 0748, 36 @ 0805, 126(!) @ 0807, and 4 @ 0820. I quit by 0825. To more accurately count birds I am always scanning sky to south with bins and pick them up far off- some stay high and distant but others are so close they are best counted without using my bins! I have been seeing swifts here for close to 25 years so have a system for accurately counting birds in a location with expansive views to south from the beach to Coast Range. I took some quick photos with my iPhone a couple times but I was concentrating on trying to count and the iPhone does not pick up all the birds as they are not at all the same distances and it has trouble focusing but the photos here give you an idea that there were lots of swifts overhead at times- pretty amazing, two days of swift mania. I think it will slow right down to nada pretty quick here.
Technical information
- Model
- iPhone 13 mini
- Lens
- iPhone 13 mini back dual wide camera 5.1mm f/1.6
- ISO
- 50
- Focal length
- 5.1 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/1.6
- Shutter speed
- 1/10870 sec
- Dimensions
- 4032 pixels x 3024 pixels
- Original file size
- 446.74 KB