Because we launched this photo-blog so late in the year, it was important for us to come up with a topic for our first post that would be representative of the many fun and serendipitous days we enjoyed birding in 2012.

To that end, we think our experience of finding and photographing a Black Swift sitting on a shallow nest tucked into a crevasse just outside Oregon's second highest waterfall is, as they say, as good as it gets.

It was the weekend of the University of Oregon's "Intro-DUCK-ion" for our youngest daughter, the date was July 27, 2012.  A fews days before, Eric Horvath reported finding Black Swift on nests at Salt Creek Falls 70 miles east of the Eugene Oregon, so we had a great opportunity to chase the swift after visiting the campus with our daughter.

We arrived at the lower viewing platform just after 2:00 pm.  We were told the falls faced west and that the best light would occur late in the afternoon.  The distance from the platform to the falls is thought to be approximately 300 yards. Although we brought our binoculars and a camera with a 500 mm lens, 2x teleconverter, and tripod, neither the binoculars or lens provided sufficient magnification to be able to discern bird from rock or vice versa.

For two hours we waited with the false hope of seeing one fly into a nest somewhere behind the falls. The thing is - we picked the wrong two hours to wait for the birds. As we found out later, adult Black Swift spend most of their day off the nest hunting before returning shortly before dark. 

As we were walking back up out of the canyon to get in our car and drive home, we came across a couple that was looking through a scope at the rock wall behind the falls.  After a brief discussion, the couple picked up their scope and headed down toward the lower viewing platform. When we reached our car, Jill took one look at me and said "go back down, it's written all over your face - I'll just wait here - I hope you find the bird".

It wasn't five minutes after I arrived back at the lower viewing platform that the guy with the scope said "I found one"!  I couldn't believe it - we'd been here over two hours scouring every inch of the rock wall and came away empty-handed - and then they walk in, set up, and a couple of minutes later they're on the bird.  What's up with that. It turns out the guy with the scope is a professor of ornithology at Oregon State University - Ok unfair advantage.

Douglas Robinson, Mace Professor of Watchable Wildlife at Oregon State University, was able to help me get the camera on one of the Swifts he found sitting on a nest.  The bird was barely discernable through the view finder, but I trusted he knew what he was looking at so we locked the tripod down, then worked to hold the camera still against the strong winds that were buffeting lens and assuring me whatever images we came away with would be mush, especially at the 300+ yards focal distance. I took at least a hundred pictures between wind gusts hoping one of the images would come out sharp enough to positively identify the bird.  

To my delight I did find an image that stayed sharp under the most extreme cropping (or magnification).  I could not believe it! 

I don't think I've ever been happier about an experience watching wildlife - this is a big shout out to Douglas Robinson! I will never forget him saying to me as I was packing up my gear for the hike back to the car "This is a really cool bird - I hope you were able to get a (good enough) photo for a positive ID". 

My sincerest thanks to our daughters Bridget and Hillary for coordinating the transportation that made this possible, Eric Horvath for finding the Black Swift nests in the first place, Jill for having the patience to support the chase, and of course Douglas Robinson showing up at the right time with the graciousness to help a novice see a really cool bird.

Black Swifts have been called North America's Most Mysterious Bird.  While the species finds suitable breeding habitat from Alaska to Honduras - they are difficult to study because they prefer to build their mossy nests, that are no larger than a small teacup, on very steep, wet, rocky faces often behind waterfalls.  According to The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America - "Swifts usually spend the entire day flying at high altitudes in search of tiny insects and floating spiders; during inclement weather, they may be seen coursing low over ponds and fields with swallows. They come to rest only at nest and roost sites in sheltered chimneys and cliff crevices and are virtually never seen perched".

Eric Horvath's article First confirmed nest of Black Swift in Oregon and additional discoveries in Washington can be found on page 76 of Oregon Birds Volume 38 Number 2, 2012

The inspiration of Eric Horvath's search for breeding Black Swift came from the ebook The Coolest Bird - A Natural History of the Black Swifty and Those Who Have Pursued It, Rich Levad, 2007