Swallows on the Move

One day last week hundreds of tree swallows were zipping around the Halibut Point moorlands on the hunt for midair insect meals invisible to my eyes. The more I appreciated their flashing, darting maneuvers the more I coveted a photograph, but couldn't focus on the speeding specks.

Tree swallows flocking

When they boiled up into a cluster over the grout pile I managed a collective picture by focusing the camera on the rocks below. But I wanted a singular stop-action prize in flight.

You'll be amused imagining me on the shoreline spinning the camera through figure-eights trying to follow individual birds in the viewfinder. Busy hands, busy humor, like building a dribble castle in the surf.
 

Tree swallow flying

I did manage to bring home one beguiling portrait of a free-flying swallow in reward for my strenuous morning.

 

Some of the birds spun out over the ocean in search of food morsels, tiny opportunists plying vast forces and distances at the outset of migration.
 

 I determined to come back for the next day's developments.

 

The imperatives of migration concentrated the tree swallows at Halibut Point to fatten up for their long flight south. They came specifically to feed on coastal bayberries.
 

The swallows maneuvered to hover above the shrubbery in headwinds gusting to 25mph.

 

Almost oblivious to people they picked berries on the wing, or perched briefly in the canopy. 

Ripe bayberries seemed to be reserved for the swallows at the moment of their high-calorie need.

By the following day the congregation had moved on to the immensity of its journey.

Each of the birds perfected a version of its life script through miles and generations.