Published on July 23, 2016
The anything but common Common
Swift spotted over Cape Race
In birding, like in any other
sport, they say you have to be good to be lucky but sometimes nothing explains
a great event other than pure simple luck.
Due to a compounding series of
events Ken Knowles and I were driving through Portugal Cove South on the southern
Avalon Peninsula at 1 p.m. on a Tuesday. There is a dead zone for cellphone
reception between Renews and Portugal Cove South. The smartphoned chimed as we
arrived back into the land of cellphones.
In the time it took to drive from
Renews to Portugal Cove South a storm of emails and texts had been flying back
and forth between birders in response to a photograph of a bird that Cliff Doran
had taken at the Cape Race lighthouse. We checked out the picture on Cliff’s
Facebook page.
It was a swift. A somewhat blurry
photo with the tail cut off.
Swifts are worldwide group of
birds built for flying at breakneck speeds in search of airborne insects. They
tend to hunt high above swallows and other fly-catching birds.
There are no swifts native to
Newfoundland and Labrador.
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