#ABArare - Cave Swallow - British Columbia
by Nate Swick
This has been, by all accounts, a phenomenal year for Cave Swallows in the states and provinces around the Great Lakes eastward to the Atlantic coast. Strong southwesterly winds, usually following long cold fronts, provide just the right sort of conditions to see these southwestern birds roll into the northeast in significant numbers and this year those conditions were exacerbated by the passage of Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy. The east coast Cave Swallows have been recorded annually since 1992, and the mechanism that drives them to these far flung and unexpected sites is fairly well understood.
This, however, is not that kind of story. Because this Cave Swallow report comes from the opposite side of the continent. On the afternoon of November 11, Jamie Fenneman, Jeremiah Kennedy and Paul Levesque, found a Cave Swallow feeding over the Southern outer pond on Iona Island near Vancouver, British Columbia. This is a first provincial record.
Iona Island is located in Iona Beach Regional Park in west Richmond adjacent to the Vancouver International Airport. Two artifical ponds have been constructed in the park that aim at restoring marsh vegetation and providing wildlife habitat.
To get to Iona Beach Regional Park, drive south on Granville Street through Vancouver and stay to the left, heading towards Richmond and the airport across the Arthur Laing Bridge. After crossing the bridge, turn right at the first traffic light at Grauer Road. Continue straight as Grauer Road becomes Ferguson Road and then Iona Island Causeway. The road will veer to the right at the far end of the airport and then take a sharp left before reaching the parking lot area for the park.
The Cave Swallow has been associating with 3 Barn Swallow. It was seen as recently as November 12.
As mentioned above, Cave Swallow has become an rare, but annually expected, vagrant in the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Coast. So far as I am able to discern, though, (and please correct me if I'm wrong) this is the first vagrant record for anywhere on the Pacific Coast for this species. A truly unexpected report.
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