It’s the first sighting of a violet-green swallow
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The violet-green swallow is a species normally found in the Rocky Mountains and along the West Coast. This sighting is one of just a few recorded for the Great Lakes.
The bird was discovered by Skye Haas, a Laughing Whitefish Audubon Society board member, on Sunday afternoon and remained in the area through at least Tuesday.
Swallows are aerial feeders, usually foraging over bodies of water for flying insects. This particular violet-green swallow has been associating with a flock of more common tree and barn swallows, and has been spending most of its time off the Lower Harbor breakwater and Cinder Pond Marina, Haas said.
Over 40 birders have come to see this rare bird, including people from far away as Houghton, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Ann Arbor and Detroit. Haas predicts that if the bird sticks around until the weekend, the number of arriving birders will undoubtedly grow as the closest nesting population of this species is in southwest North Dakota.
This is not the first time a rare bird has brought bird-watchers to Marquette County. In fall of 2006, both a vermilion flycatcher in Big Bay and a green-tailed towhee in Marquette attracted more than 200 birders to the area. Both of those species are normally only found in the deserts of the southwest. This situation was repeated in October 2007 when the discovery of a Nelson’s sharp-tailed sparrow at Presque Isle Park in Marquette drew in observers from far away as Ann Arbor.
For more information on the Laughing Whitefish Audubon Society and bird watching in the Upper Peninsula, visit www.UPBirders.org
