"This is such a Portland thing to do."

I said that myself, and then overheard it at least 10 times, watching the Chapman Vaux Swifts put on a spectacular show last night. Every year thousands of these little birds migrate south and stop by Portland on the way, feeding during the day and roosting in a chimney at a local school at night. And hundreds of people gather every single night to watch their descent.

It starts out slow, with a few birds meandering their way near the chimney about an hour before dusk. As the sun sets, more and more birds arrive:


(All those specks you aren't sure are birds? Yeah, they're birds. I need to get my camera lens cleaned.)


The sun sets, the orchestrated frenzy reaches a peak and the majority of birds fly into the chimney, reverse-tornado-style. A few lingering swarms do synchronized acrobatics in the sky and eventually follow suit.

The show seems to always feature a hawk in search of dinner. The nature-loving crowd oohs and aahs when the hawk comes near, gasps when it storms into the swarm of swifts, and... yes... cheers, hoots and hollers when it finally catches one and flies away. Who'd have thunk. I got some video of this which I'll try to clean up and post, but the clearest part is the roar from the crowd when Mr. Hawk snags a swift.

A guy sitting next to us theorized that we are the show for the birds, rather than vice versa. I can't help but wonder...