Goodbye until the end of September

No pictures today, the cameras are packed…we’re heading north for 6 weeks to see what we can see.  By the time we get back, which won’t be until after the middle of September, water levels will have hopefully dropped to the stage that we’ll be able to get back to our usual mid-day walks and bird life should get interesting as it will be getting close to salmon spawning time and with that, the return of the Bald Eagles….so check in again, towards the end of September, when, provided I don’t run afoul of a Yukon Grizzly Bear…we’ll get back to blogging.  Enjoy the rest of the summer.

Summer…and swarms of Swallows

The first day of August and it seems that with this weekend, our summer has finally arrived.

this afternoon Ernie took one of the kayaks out and headed over to the Chehalis River (I’m not sure why I wasn’t invited to go along!)

while he was there he witnessed something we have seen at this time, in several years past…that is swarms of swallows….tree’s full of young birds…

in years past these swarms have been made up of as many as 4 different species…

Just looking at these pictures, these appear to be mainly Tree Swallows, although there could well be some Northern Rough Wing and Violet Green Mixed in…don’t see any Barn Swallows….

it does answer the question, though, of where are all the Swallows…apparently they are over on the Chehalis River!  and that is a good thing because the lack of Swallows was getting a bit concerning…