Gallery: Tree Swallows Snuggle in a Snowstorm

From the Spring 2022 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now.

Photographer Keith Williams captured this astonishing image of Tree Swallows huddled together during a surprise spring snowstorm along the Yukon River in northwestern Canada.

Williams says that on a typical, warmer spring day at that time of year, the swallows would have been swooping around to eat up flying insects and regain strength following their northbound migration from the southwestern United States or Mexico. But in this moment on a blustery day in mid-May, these fluffed-up birds seemed to be intent on conserving their energy.