ML619684988
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Observation details
An absolutely incredible encounter! While looking up at some Black-throated Gray Warblers near the beginning of the Canyon Trail at (37.32189078668703, -122.17228349834042) around 7:50am, I saw a flock of at least 5 birds through a gap in the canopy. I yelled "Swifts!!" and locked on to the last bird in the flock with my camera. When they were outt of view 5 seconds later, I excitedly checked the picture to see that they were Black Swifts! In the brief moment when I observed them with my naked eye before going for my camera, I was able to see individual wingbeats, unlike the vibration-like flapping of Vaux's Swift. The photos show an all-black swift with long, sickle-shaped wings that are broad at the base, and a squared-off tail intermediate in length between Vaux's and White-throated Swift. Black Swift was actually the main target of our outing today, because we hoped with BirdCast forecasting a good migration on such a late date there would be migrant Black Swifts. Our hopes came true!! The birds we saw were flying straight north, so I assume they were migrants. Also, a huge thank you to Matthew Dodder, who suggested that the Santa Cruz Mountains was the best place to get this bird in the county. We definitely got lucky to see the birds from where we did, since there was so much tree cover. Standing at (37.32296916336525, -122.17473552818521) would give a better view of where the birds flew over today, and the bend in the trail at (37.324233794996935, -122.17778003504263) also has views of other ridges the swift could come over.
Technical information
- Model
- DSC-RX10M4
- Lens
- 24-600mm F2.4-4.0
- ISO
- 500
- Focal length
- 220 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/4.0
- Shutter speed
- 1/1600 sec
- Dimensions
- 1321 pixels x 865 pixels
- Original file size
- 781.87 KB