I made a mistake.
I sent the trip report without mentioning the white-throated swift encounter. And David and the cat. Rags the cat went bonkers over brother David. Just as I was explaining to him that Rags wasn’t really all that affectionate: that he was not a lap-cat, Rags jumped up onto David’s lap, made himself comfortable on David’s chest, and settled down to purr and get his head scratched. Nevermind that part about not needing people. David is different.
So Uncle David is now Rags’ favorite Uncle. David takes him for walks in the desert, waits while Rags rolls upside down in the desert dirt, and stands in one spot as long as Rags wants while he’s pouncing on bugs and lizards. Rags the Hunter. It’s an awesome sight. And Rags and David together. It was great. Rags ran over to the door to greet him every time David came over.
At the Colorado National Monument, we, David and I, had a close encounter with white-throated swifts. While sitting at the edge of a two thousand foot vertical cliff, we watched the white-throated swifts swoop and swirl in the currents, wreaking havoc on an insect population unseen by us. At least I think the birds were eating. I guess they could have just been flying around having fun. We watched through the binoculars when we could lock on. They’re so fast, they’re hard to follow. Then we realized we could just sit quietly and listen to them as well. It’s a thin little cheeping call they make as they fly around. Subtle. Then suddenly, from high above, and at a speed we can’t even guess, we got dive bombed by one. He buzzed close by our heads with a roar. It was a tiny roar, appropriate for such a small bird, but it was a roar nonetheless. He was going so fast, it must have been the sound of his feathers fluttering in the extreme speed. It startled us both. We continued to sit and listen, and it was a delight.
We did hear some more wing-noise from the birds flying around, but nothing like that one roar happened again. To us. Later, when we ran into the young forest ranger, out to Grand Junction for firefighting school, he told us a story about watching those little birds flying around, swirling and swooping through the canyon, and suddenly, one of the little buggers buzzed him. Startled him, in fact.
Sorry for the oversight. I didn’t mean to leave out our cat and bird experiences.
