Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 07:04:05 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Elliot Kirschbaum Subject: Rehabilitated Swift Release In-Reply-To: <19c.1ae8e813.2cb378e2@aol.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Carol Schreter asked me to post this message. Elliot Kirschbaum Baltimore, MD USA Bird rehabilitation people from Avian Haven, Freeport, Maine had 5 young Chimney Swifts ready to release. There are no more Swifts in Maine at this time of year, so they drove the young-uns all the way to Baltimore for a release. Why Baltimore? They heard of us from the "Swift Night Out" people at Driftwood Wildlife Assocation in Texas. They came here because we have been monitoring the Hampden chimney, and could assure them of a Chimney Swift crowd. This occurred Saturday night, 10-4-03. Here is a follow-up message I sent to the rehabber still in Maine. << Hi Diane and Marc. Avian Haven, Freeport Maine. It was a real treat seeing the five young swifts join their flock on 10-4-03. That a rehabber would drive 750 miles, from Maine to Baltimore, to release these birds is really a heroic act. When we let them loose, there were maybe 20 swifts visible in the area, spread out around. Within a minute or two of the first young released, 250 swifts converged to meet or greet them, at 6 PM. From that time on, the numbers of swifts increased up to 1000 visible in air, and never dropped lower, until the whole flock was in the chimney, about 7 PM. It'd guess it was a 5,000 Chimney Swift night here in Hampden, Baltimore, but we did not bother to count. Also, from 6:00 to 6:30, every 5 - 10 minutes, one or two young swifts would buzz us, flying maybe 10 feet overhead as we stood in the center of a large parking lot. Now I've spent lots of hours in this parking lot over the past 3 years, and I've never seen swifts fly so low as that over our heads. This was certainly your young-uns, coming to see Papa. Many thanks for your care and kindness to the critters. It was a great opportunity to actually hold a Chimney Swift. He/she was wiggling like a worm, so excited by being out of that cage, hearing his/her mates overhead. It was also a great opportunity to meet Marc. He's given me lots of ideas for local issues. Wishing you and Avian Haven of Freeport, Maine, well! Carol Schreter. Baltimore Bird Club 1905 Dixon Rd. Baltimore, MD 21209 -3507 Phone: (410) 664-5151 CSchreter@aol.com >> ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================