Tree Swallow fall staging roost

[Dan Brown]

This image depicts a huge Tree Swallow fall staging roost in a corn field near Tracy CA. The roost was active in October of this year for about 3 weeks and it was estimated at 1 million birds at its peak (the estimate was made with Doppler radar?). My image is of about 5 degrees of the horizon and the scene was the same for the remaining 355 degrees. It was like being in a dome filled with swallows calling! This was an amazing spectacle to say the least. The birds would start arriving in the vicinity of the huge corn fields at about 555pm and continue to mount in numbers and in Tree Swallow calls until about 630pm when they would start spiralling in groups of 1000 or so and fall into the corn with a "swoosh" that you could here if you were close enough to a group. They would do this spiralling for about 5 minute until finally the last group would fall into the corn and then there would be an instant dead silence! I've been birding for about 30 years and never have I seen or heard anything to compare:eek:

The capture was made with a handheld Nikon D200 with a 24-120mm lens at 120mm, f5.6, 1/750sec, ISO 800, manual focus, manual exp.

[denise ippolito]

Amazing! I never saw or heard anything like this-What a great capture, Thankyou for sharing. It makes a very interesting photo.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Thank you so much Dan for sharing such a great story and image. Reading your the story above drove me to the scene, I feel like I can hear these swallows!
Great composition and colors.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Excellent story, wish I could witness something like it! I know the image doesn't do justice to what you saw and heard, but it's enough to make us imagine it :-)

[Stu Bowie]

The third one on the left is OOF. LOL. What an amazing sight Dan. I wish I could have witnessed this first hand. Thanks for sharing.

[Tony Whitehead]

Amazing story Dan. Sounds incredible to have witnessed this and I'm sure the image just doesn't do justice to the experience. Without the explanation it looks like a sensor cleaning is in order!!! :D:D

[Rene' Villela]

Dan.... Nice landscape! What's with the dust? or is it rain? :) Really nice story but not Like Juan, no matter how I try I still can't hear them! Ah well! :) Thank you for sharing with us!

[Juan Aragonés]

What a massive amount of birds! It must be an amazing experience to witness that. Great that you include the silouette of the corn field to the composition.

[John Ippolito]

Amazing story Dan. The profusion of specks in your image looks like a plague of locusts. Thanks for sharing the experience.