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Posted by Mark Faherty on 12:46:50 12/21/06
I pulled over on the ENP park road this morning near the campground to watch the swarm of a couple thousand tree swallows that's been hanging out there snaking its way through the pines in a particularly pleasing way. The front-end of the sinuous swarm suddenly descended locust-style on a fruit-laden wax myrtle bush a few feet from my car, the weight of hundreds of swallows bending the bush completely over until its top was on the ground, while still more hundreds tried to land on it. It was an impressive and startling spectacle. I've seen this same swarming behavior with wax myrtle berries (apparently the only kind they eat) in the dunes of Cape Cod, but never from so close. It was wicked cool.
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