WESTERN BIRDS Swift 



its supporting wall. In the November Condor of 1907 

 Florence Merriam Bailey tells of finding these birds 

 nesting at the San Juan Capistrano Mission, California. 



In the September, 1914, Condor, H. Arden Edwards 

 tells of finding them nesting in a stump at Barley Flats, 

 Big Tujunga Range, Sierra Madre Mountains, southern 

 California. 



The bare stub where the birds were nesting was that 

 of an immense fir tree, about eighty feet high, and 

 probably six feet through at the base. The sole means 

 of ascending it was afforded by several jagged cracks 

 in the body wood (the bark being entirely gone) and 

 an occasional slippery knot or stub. The nest of the 

 Swifts was in a large crack about thirty feet up, a crack 

 which extended side-ways for several inches, then ran 

 at right angles again. Mr. Edwards tells us that the 

 nest he found, after prying off a section of the wood, 

 was a typical Tree Swallow structure and would have 

 been taken for such had not the Swifts manifested their 

 interest in it by darting at him, swinging about his head 

 in ceaseless flight with frightened twitterings. "The nest 

 was composed of dried grasses, several needles from the 

 big-cone spruce, some dried leaves, and a few feathers of 

 a dusky white, that were evidently from the birds them- 

 selves. The dry grass was the dominating material and 

 was woven, or rather laid, the long way of the crack. 

 The inside of the nest was about two and a half inches 

 in diameter, not over one and a half in depth, and was 

 a little longer one way than the other. The whole affair 

 was rather loosely built and there was no finish at the 

 upper edge of the nest proper except a few coiled 

 grasses." Mr. Edwards also says that the Swifts had a 

 habit of suddenly darting straight down, as on the angle 

 of a long V, and, making a half turn at the lowest point, 

 shooting up again, in an ascent of inconceivable rapidity. 

 Since these birds are supposed to always nest in crevices, 



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