. The birds of California : a complete, scientific and popular account of the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. Birds; Birds. The Northern Black Swift but the Black Swift! For everybody knows by now that the Black Swift is a bird of the high mountains. This fellow in Santa Cruz has stumbled on some petrel's egg, deposited, perhaps, in haste, on an exposed shelf instead of its habitual burrow. The Black Swift had for decades teased the oological imagination. The bird itself was none of the commonest; but when we did see it, we saw it in roving companies numbering scores or
. The birds of California : a complete, scientific and popular account of the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. Birds; Birds. The Northern Black Swift but the Black Swift! For everybody knows by now that the Black Swift is a bird of the high mountains. This fellow in Santa Cruz has stumbled on some petrel's egg, deposited, perhaps, in haste, on an exposed shelf instead of its habitual burrow. The Black Swift had for decades teased the oological imagination. The bird itself was none of the commonest; but when we did see it, we saw it in roving companies numbering scores or even hundreds. Every movement of these great, black, silent "sky-scrapers" bespoke mystery, no less than ease and power. A lucky day had found them gyrating about the solemn bastions of some basaltic range in eastern Oregon or Washington. Another had seen them madly crossing and recrossing the face of a giant bulwark of the high Sierras, or else hurtling like scimitars through the defiles of a frozen mountain pass. Again, it pleased their whim to descend upon the plains, a thousand strong, and there they hawked at insects, like swallows, albeit with a dash skill unknown to the swallows. At a time, again, they would deploy over the surface of one of the larger lakes, Chelan, Tahoe, or Washington;. Taken in Santa Cruz County A BIT OF THE SANTA CRUZ COAST THE ONLY ESTABLISHED NESTING HAUNT OF THE BLACK SWIFT Photo by the Author 973. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Dawson, William Leon, 1873-1928; Dickey, Donald R. (Donald Ryder), 1887-1932; Pierce, Wright M; Finley, William L. (William Lovell), 1876-1953; Brooks, Allan, 1869-1946. San Diego ; Los Angeles ; San Francisco : South Moulton Company
Size: 1910px × 1308px
Photo credit: © Library Book Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1923
