Vaux's Swifts...

While anchored in Portland Oregon it has been fun to seek and engage activities that are PDX-centric and uniquely regional. Cruising the snowy skirts of Mt. Hood or a culinary ramble among the foodcarts  is obvious. Less so is a September evening excursion to the Chapman Elementary School.

An hour before sunset you will be lucky to wedge into a free hillside grass patch amongst 1000 other Portlanders. Expect tri pods and expensive cameras, blankets and lawn chairs, evening picnics with fruit salads, root beer, wine - and hundreds of shrieking kids. Kind of like a planetarium show only free and a little more dynamic. As golden light fades everyone is gazing skyward and above the looming Chapman chimney where the swifts, en route to Central and S. America, come to roost on their migrations.

Better than any fireworks show by far, natures choreographer is top-notch with hungry hawks swooping in several times during the hour performance, braving the swirling swarms to snatch a dinner in mid-flight. The "oohs" and "ahhhs" from the crowd mirror the swifts and the sense you get staring skyward that somehow all these individual beings are sharing one brain as they react in perfect flowing harmony to the moment.