If they didn’t have feathers you would certainly think they were bats. This is in fact the case, since many Samoans swear that they see the little bats flying out of the cave. We were going into the cave to verify that bats did or did not still live in the cave. So after wading through muck (read dirt, water, and bird poop) up to our knees we can definitively say that only little birds remain.
So while we went into the cave looking for sheath-tailed bats, we instead found a wonderful little bird, the white-rumped swiftlet.
They are pretty cool. As I said, they echolocate like a bat, and so they fly through the complete darkness of caves. Their echolocating clicks are audible to the human ear so that as you walk through the cave you can hear them clicking away. Like bats, they don’t usually echolocate in flyways they are familiar with. This is sort of like you making a midnight trip to the refrigerator with the lights out. You have done it so many times that you just know where to go. Well, bats and swiftlets do the same thing only when they don’t echolocate they crash into you as they fly out. It is rather surreal to be minding your own business when all of a sudden a bird bounces off your face. They learn quickly though and I am sure those few birds which hit something will be echolocating like mad for the next few days to make sure there is not something in the way.
What I found really neat was that these little birds can easily be caught by hand while they sit perched on the wall of the cave. They have no predators that would hunt them and they don’t see very well in the dark so they are quite possibly the easiest bird to catch and band. Most of these birds we were careful not to disturb though, since many were sitting on nests. These nests are made of layers of lichens. These little nests appear to be used year after year (like eagles do) with each new year a fresh layer is added. Their nests are bound together and attached to the wall with their own saliva and each has 1-2 small white eggs.
What I found really neat was that these little birds can easily be caught by hand while they sit perched on the wall of the cave. They have no predators that would hunt them and they don’t see very well in the dark so they are quite possibly the easiest bird to catch and band. Most of these birds we were careful not to disturb though, since many were sitting on nests. These nests are made of layers of lichens. These little nests appear to be used year after year (like eagles do) with each new year a fresh layer is added. Their nests are bound together and attached to the wall with their own saliva and each has 1-2 small white eggs. So while we went into the cave looking for sheath-tailed bats, we instead found a wonderful little bird, the white-rumped swiftlet.-Paul
1 comment:
Love the post! It's great to get to see a place I'd never have known about. I think you should do "naturalist" blogs all the time.
Liz
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