What's Next?

When I was a kid, there were certain birds I'd look at in my Golden Guide and dream of seeing someday. Some, like California Condor, had impossibly tiny dots on their range maps. Others, like White-tailed Kite, had slightly larger ranges marked on their maps, but their ranges were so far from my home that I figured I'd be lucky to ever see them. This didn't stop me from searching the countryside around my house for them; I held out hope that one would take a wrong turn someday and drift over my way. Hope is the thing with wings, after all. Then again, I also held out hope that a pirate ship would sail up the creek behind my house and take me away to live a life of adventure.

Anyway, some birds were especially intriguing. The Cave Swallow was so limited in its range that it didn't even get its own map. Even its account got short shrift. Here it is in its entirety:

Very local in spring and summer near Carlsbad Cavern, N. Mex., and in south-central Texas. Like Cliff Swallow except for buffy throat. Nests in limestone caves.

Clearly, Cave Swallow was a bird that took some doing to see.

The years went by and I moved a little closer to Cave Swallow range, but still far from the range as listed in the Golden Guide. But all that while, like the gargoyles in the old late night TV movie, Cave Swallows began to spread out of the desert. Unlike the gargoyles, however, nobody poured gasoline on the Cave Swallow eggs and nipped their future in the bud. The Cave Swallows just kept on coming.

Of course, Cave Swallows weren't even known as nesters within the United States before 1915, so their march has been steady for about a century at least. Other swallows have been spreading wildly during that time, too. Barn Swallows are some of our most common summer birds today, but as of the 1930s there were almost no summer records for the state. Cliff Swallows, very close relatives of Cave Swallows, have also recently invaded the state as nesters in a big way.

Louisiana got its first record of Cave Swallow in 1988, all the way over in Saint Tammany Parish. Within a few years, nesting Cave Swallows were being reported regularly on the Louisiana side of the bridge at Sabine Pass. Over the past few years Cave Swallows have been seen in the autumn as well, often heading directly northeast (not surprisingly, autumn numbers of Cave Swallows in the northeastern United States have skyrocketed recently).

The bird in the video above, filmed yesterday near Lake Arthur, appears to be a young bird. Its throat is whitish and there's a buffy band across the chest. On its right is a Barn Swallow. With the increasing number of reports of Cave Swallows across a widening zone, it seems clear that the once rare Cave Swallow will become common here before too long. Needless to say, Cave Swallows now have their own range maps in field guides.

New Invaders from the South?

Over the last few decades, Louisiana has had its share of avian invaders. House Finches from the east, Eurasian Collared Doves from the southeast, even Tree Swallows from the north have arrived and set up shop here. However, the biggest source of new arrivals has been from the south and west. Many birds that were once uncommon or rare in the state, such as White-winged and Inca Doves, are now common. Swainson's Hawks have been documented as breeders and are no longer a surprising summer sight in SW Louisiana. Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and Cave Swallows have colonized the state as nesters, and Northern Caracara numbers have possibly been augmented by wanderers from Texas. Migrants and winterers such as Yellow-green Vireo and White-tailed Hawk have seen recent upticks as well.

Another bird that's shown an upsurge is Great Kiskadee. Although the first Louisiana record for this species dates back many decades and there has been a steady flow of records since, the past winter and this current spring have given cause to wonder if Great Kiskadees might not have gained at least a minor foothold in the state. One calling bird was found by James Beck on the northern edge of the marsh south of Klondike this past winter. Another was located by Michael Seymour at the White Lake Preserve. Wildlife personnel there informed him that two have been present during the past winter, raising the possibility of breeding. In April, a kiskadee was reported by Jacob Saucier and James Maley near Creole. Then, earlier this month near the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in Vermillion Parish, Donna Dittmann and Steve Cardiff found two Kiskadees attending a nest. Although this wasn't the first reported nesting attempt for the species in the state, it was the first involving a pair of birds. Prior attempts have all been made by single birds.

How successful the current attempt will be remains to be seen. Whether this attempt is their first, and whether other records in the area stem from local offspring or vagrants is a mystery, but Great Kiskadee would be a welcome addition to the regular birdlife of SW Louisiana.