Vaux's swifts

Pouring rain today so I once again didn't get any yard or garden work done.  But I had a lot of birds at my feeders and I got a few more good pictures of different varieties the last few days so I will post those soon.

But for now I want to post pictures of some migratory birds that I watched this evening.  I heard about the Vaux's swifts being on their annual migration through our valley and that they roost for the night in a chimney in a nearby town, so this evening I drove over to view them.

There was a swarm of birds all across the sky above downtown.  They were chattering loudly, and swirling all around the sky.

Here is the chimney where they will eventually spend the night.  It is in an old 3-storey hotel, so I guess it can hold a lot of birds.

At sunset, the birds spiral around and on each pass some of them head down the chimney.  As they do more birds continue to arrive, I'm guessing from wherever they were out feeding around town, so the number of birds does not really seem to decrease even though some have gone inside.

Eventually the last 2 birds went inside, the sky was empty and quiet, and the show was over.

Here are a couple other pictures I took on the drive over.:

Along the valley floor, buttes rise periodically.  Right now is the greenest time of year.  I live in a beautiful place! 

 An old one-room country school house.

This is the time of year that the camas blooms.  I tried to get some good pictures of the camas, but it never grows in places where you can pull over and stop and it's hard to get a clear picture from a moving car.
This is the best I could do, which does not at all do justice to this beautiful native flower.  Some day I will get a better picture and then I will write a post about camas and it's history in our area.