Swallows is the same. This one looks like barn swallows but with no orange on bottom – just white beneath, iridescent blue on top. I haven’t seen them feeding as often as barn swallows or violet-greens, but when I have, it was even higher elevation than VGs, maybe twelve to twenty meters?
I have to imagine they got their name from nesting in trees, but I have seen them in nest boxes barely above human height, right out in the middle of a field. It’s the only reason I can say I’ve positively ID’d them before. I have also seen swallows on a bright day flying near treetops (in WA state) and thought, likely but not certain.
The place with the nest boxes was some kind of wildlife reserve next to a busy freeway in Kansas, because of course it was next to a busy freeway. It was the kind of place people come to have sad outdoor sex, with patchy clouds and drips of rain, the fields wet and marshy – dotted with bushes and small trees. My brother brought me there on the last day of a poorly planned visit, for last minute birding.
The visitor center had some taxidermy birds of prey. The red tailed hawk was smaller than I would have imagined. In the fields we saw a lot of red-winged blackbirds at various growth stages, and a few proud yellow meadowlarks. The weirdest thing we saw was these orange slimy gelatinous-looking finger-like structures on the branches of a small pine. Slime molds? An actual fungus? Fruiting bodies? I know next to nothing of these subjects.
The last thing we did that day before I got on the plane was going to a fast food place called Freddy’s. We don’t have those in WA state. They have skinny fries and smashed burgers with charred edges. That makes everything more crispy and rich. Baller. I’m not eating as much beef now because global warming, but if I get a chance to have that again, I will do it at least once. Gag in the Bag recently added “smashed” burgers to their menu, but if they aren’t also charred, they are missing the entire point.
Oh yeah, birds. Iridescent blue on top and white underneath. Cute. Fast. Maybe you can see them too.
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