Chimney Swifts and Lesser Nighthawk at Totten Reservoir (Montezuma County)

[Eric Hynes]

Good Morning CO Birders,

Yesterday evening I was standing on the bluff on the east side of Totten Reservoir at 1800, just outside Cortez, and was about to leave when a Chaetura sp. buzzed by me. I almost dropped my scope. This may not seem like a big deal to CO birders closer to Kansas, but for us who are closer to Utah, a small, dark swift is terribly exciting. 

In short order, I was joined by Erik Hendrickson, then Brenda Wright and Coen Dexter. We stayed until nearly dark and managed to see this swift a number of times. We took thousands of photos, some of which had the swift in it. It was joined by a second Chaetura sp. and at one of the times they were together, flying directly over us, all four of us heard a few seconds of rapid, flat tweetering chatter... Chimney Swift! It is a sound I am very familiar with, having grown up in New England. I played Vaux's Swift off my phone after hearing the birds and we all agreed, it was not the sharper, sweeter Pygmy Nuthatchesque squeaks of a Vaux's Swift. PHEW! We were all greatly relieved to hear it. We had spent a lot of time discussing the finer points of Chimney versus Vaux's ID based on field marks and found ourselves about as confident as a person on thin ice (until it/they called). We called them both Chimney Swift because we could not discern any difference between them proportionally. 

At sunset, we added a very good look at a solo Black Swift and noted the larger size and the decidedly different structure and flight behavior.

Since we had stayed until sunset, we gave it a few more minutes because Brenda and Coen had a Lesser Nighthawk at this same spot recently. On cue, a Lesser Nighthawk started coursing back and forth along the slope below us. In short order it was joined by a second Lesser Nighthawk and then a Common Nighthawk, which made for great comparison.

Overall, a fantastic evening and enough excitement to keep me sharp dodging Elk on my drive back up to Telluride. Brenda shared the eBird checklist already, which I hope to add to later today. Check it out here: https://ebird.org/checklist/S88891726

Best,

Eric

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Eric Hynes

Telluride, CO

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