Susan Harrison, an ecologist at UC Davis and a regular contributor, sends us a narrative about how she became a Swiftie. Her notes and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.
A miraculous waterfall and its avian inhabitants
or “How I became a Swiftie”
“The eighth wonder of the world,” Theodore Roosevelt once called Burney Falls in Shasta County, California. Amid a dry forested landscape, a massive cascade of water not only spills over a cliff in normal waterfall fashion, but also bursts through layered crevices in the rock to form sheets, veils and braids spanning hundreds of feet in width. The flow remains remarkably constant year-round and even in drought years.
Burney Falls:
These falls are one of the most important homes for the Black Swift, (Cypseloides niger), a rare and mysterious bird that nests behind waterfalls and on sea cliffs at only about 80 known locations.
State Park sign announcing the waterfall’s statistics and its celebrated inhabitant:
Nesting Black Swift, from allaboutbirds.org:
Swifts fly with rapid stiff wingbeats and make dizzying swoops as they catch insects and visit their well-hidden nests. They weren’t named for standing still, and indeed can’t stand at all since their legs are tiny and weak. (Their family name is Apodidae, meaning “no feet”.)
Black Swifts swooping around Burney Falls; these photos are the best my camera and I could do with a fast and faraway subject:
These two may be the co-occurring and more common Vaux’s Swift (Chaetura vauxi), based on their pale heads, but please feel free to weigh in if you’re an expert (= a Swiftie?): \
Why Burney Falls is so copious and constant:
Burney Mountain, source of the mighty underground river that feeds the falls:
Unassuming little Burney Creek less than a mile above the falls:
FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps built the trails and stonemasonry that give access to Burney Falls and so many other natural wonders. My hat is perennially off to those hardworking survivors of the Great Depression.
Historic CCC cabin:
And a philosophical park bench:
Wonderful trip.
Beautiful shots and lovely digest of its history.
Trump will destroy it with his kakistocratic corruption.
Hope he will not be able to since it is in a California State Park.
What an interesting piece, thank you! I’m more familiar with chimney swifts, I had no idea that some of the species nested behind waterfalls. And I love that bench message. :-J
Thanks for the wonderful travelogue. I’ve seen Black Swifts only a couple of times, and have never been able to get a photo.
Great stuff!
That looks like a very interesting place. It will have an amazing, possibly unique diatom ecosystem in the moss around the waterfall. I hope someone has looked at it.
I did not not know that there were temperate-zone swifts that nest behind waterfalls. It is common for tropical swifts to do that, most famously the huge White-collared Swift.
Great falls and cascades, Susan. Thanks. We have similar here in Virginia in the Shenandoah National Park, also with access and infrastructure courtesy of the depression era CCC. Love the Poincare quotation!
The fearless bejeweled birds fit all too well in their wonderland behind the falls, where they can just shake it off..
Glad there is no bad blood between them and their Vaux’s cousins!
Sorry…
Wonderful! The camera might not be awesome, but the photographer and the subjects shine through.
Beautiful countryside. Thanks.
Susan thanks for the bird photos and the park bench. I keep this Poincare quotation close by because it expresses why I became a biologist.
“The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living”
I’ve been to Burney Falls and wondered why it wasn’t more famous. A bit out of the way I guess. Beautiful place. Reminded me of some similar waterfalls in Japan.
Big Swiftie! I’d like to join the club. I’m a fan of the Zappa song too, but not too much of a Taylor Swift fan. 😉
It’s nice to know that FDR’s legacy still exists in small and important ways as well as large important ways. Hat’s off indeed! No surprise that conservatives were against CCC at the time. What do conservatives want to conserve, anyway?
Thanks for the lovely post.
Beautiful, thank you.