Bank Swallows reconsidered

I got a lot of responses to my posts about Bank Swallows from people on Long Island who wanted to tell me about their local colonies of this species. Most of these colonies are on the cliffs facing LI Sound or the interior bays (Peconic & Gardiners). What I was seeing here on the South Shore was a small number of Bank Swallows on a daily basis followed by fairly large influx of them on the marsh on a single day last week. Since then I've had only a single brief glimpse of what might have been a Bank Swallow. All this leads me to the conclusion that these birds were likely not local breeders (which I would expect to see here on a regular basis) but late migrants on their way north. Bank Swallows have quite a northerly range for swallows and I suspect that the colder parts of their range hatch a lot of insects but only well into June.

To be honest, there were very few swallows of any kind over the marsh this morning after yesterday's heavy rains. I really do wonder how the martins, swallows and swifts survive a few days without insects. The rain was also hard on mid-June flowers including the Rambler Roses, Sundrops and other daytime flowers just now coming into full bloom. On the other hand, the Hawkweed, a flower that does not like the full sun and tends to flower in the morning, is in full daytime, daylong display under heavy skies.

Unfortunately, Nuttall's Lobelia did not do as well. Eric Lamont writes me that "Lobelia nuttallii is listed as a rare plant in New York" and has an S3 rating on the New York Natural Heritage Program. So it was a good find (his words)! Alas, the rain and/or the high tides seem to have done in the half dozen specimens of this rare plant in the one stand that I found. I can only hope that there are at least a few viable seeds to tide it over (no pun intended) until next year.

Eric Salzman