Barn Swallow- day 2! Feb 10; Marquette

[theowlranch at aol.com]

Defying the odds, the Barn Swallow made it through the night and is actively foraging in the ravine of Whetstone Creek at Flounders Landing here in the City of Marquette. 

Temps are dropping to the low 20's on Thursday, with a low of 5 on Saturday, so that ought to nab the little bugger a Darwin award for sure.

The photo gallery is still down, but will check back later to see if the grovestreet folks have it back up.

The bird seems to be a bit more alert, much faster and would perch when the sun rolled out of the clouds. While undoubtedly stressed, it must be getting enough food to keep it going. Still it is a fluffed out, unhappy looking bird. Really biological amazing.

Al Wormington slid me over a record of a Barn Swallow from Feb 9, 1969 in Nova Scotia. If anyone else has winter records of Barn Swallows in the north in winter, please let me know.

The/a male Hooded Merganser was at the mouth of the creek with the Bufflehead and Mallards, and there are little pods of Herring Gulls on the ice over both harbors, I suspect a few gulls are early migrants as the numbers of gulls have been very low in MQT for the last month. 

~Skye Haas
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