Almost sunset. I walk a little faster, hoping to secure a sweet little spot on the hillside where I’ll spread my blanket and settle in before t
he annual show begins. Heads are turning in every direction, searching for the first sign. But there is nothing yet. I lay back, staring into the silken blue nothingness that hovers high above me. Soft voices emanate from all sides, the social web of Portlanders making random connections across the schoolyard in that certain way we do. Mount St. Helens slowly melts away as the last light of day disconnects it from the sky marquee. Backlit now, the soft hues of a late summer sky frame the giant smokestack that is the focus of our collective attention.
A sudden hush falls over the crowd camped out here on the lawn at Chapman School in Northwest Portland. First one, then five, now a dozen Vaux’s swifts alight from nowhere and circle the chimney from a safe distance. I think of tiny black A-6’s on a reconnaissance flight, but then hundreds more circle in, diving and swirling in elaborate formation. It is extraordinary.
I stand in awe and slowly raise my arms without even being aware. I lift them higher still, as though my subconscious mind expects to lift off into the sky, light as air, like a paper ornament. I am transfixed. Diving in perilous beauty, thousands and thousands of little birds engage in an elegant waltz across the darkening sky. Each swift eventually disappearing into their cavernous roost on this cool September night.
There is no larger congregation of Vaux’s swifts anywhere in the world. Thirty-five thousand birds flock to this single boiler chimney for a couple of weeks every year before returning to Central America for the autumn migration. An artful biological spectacle I dare not miss. And just like the little birds, I return here too. And each year it seems I have never seen anything quite so beautiful.
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