Violet-green Swallow- MQT 4/28 update

[theowlranch at aol.com]

Violent-green kills 9, maims 8!
Survivors state "it was worth it"

As posted earlier, the Violet-green Swallow was relocated today in Marquette's lower harbor. The bird spent most of its morning and now afternoon working the north part of the harbor, mostly concentrated around the outer rip-rap breakwall of the Cinder Pond Marina (part of Mateson Park) or the main lower harbor breakwall. We left the harbor around 330PM were we had not seen the bird for about 20 minutes, but Scott Hickman was just arriving to look for the bird so there may be more info to follow. 
When the bird is feeding along the breakwalls, it is providing for incredibly good looks, sometimes flying by within feet of the observer. More then once I have seen birders duck from a close pass-by of the bird and other Tree Swallows.
Many photos were taken, & I should actually get some up this evening on www.UPBirders.org in the 2008 Photo gallery. 

So to try and find the bird, one should probably start on the main harbor breakwall as the swallows seem to use it alot and thats where the Violet-green was first observed today. This also gives one a good vantage point to see the entire harbor, if the swallow flock is farther away. The parking lot for the breakwall is on the northeast side of the harbor- just follow Lakeshore around the harbor until you get to the Marquette Coast Guard dock and walk out on the wall. 
There are several other vantage points one can look for, there are multiple public access point to the harbor.

It should be noted that despite birders looking, the bird was not seen until at least 1030-11AM this morning. If the temperature is cold, the swallows probably won't be feeding early in the morning.

I'll be looking for it in the morning and post an update if it is found.

good luck to all who look for this beautiful little bird.

~Skye Haas


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