It's long but worth reading.

Bill Kaufman
Woodinville
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Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica)


"Hi-tech Barn Swallows

A couple of Minnesota Barn Swallows have raised the bar on the scale of
"Swallow IQ." For the past four years, a pair of Barn Swallows has nested
inside the lumberyard entryway at the Home Depot store in Maplewood,
Minnesota. At least one pair has learned that if they fly a tight circle in
front of the motion detector above the double doors at the entry to the Home
Depot, the doors open. Each bird then flies one more loop as the doors open
and swoops inside where the pair has built a nest atop a small pipe near the
ceiling. When a bird is ready to leave, it flies a tight circle in front of
the motion detector inside the doorway and the doors again open for Home
Depot's small avian customers.

Keith Stomberg, a supervisor at the store, first noticed the birds nesting
inside in the summer of 2001. He was fascinated by their apparent learned
behavior and left them alone to raise their families. It was a good place
for the swallows to raise their young because there were no predators or bad
weather. The pair typically raised two broods each year. When the birds
returned to nest in 2003, he contacted the staff of the Nongame Wildlife
Program of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Wildlife biologist Joan Galli observed the nesting swallows and was amazed
to see how the birds had adapted to the unique setting in order to raise
their families. "We typically think of the crow family and the parrot family
as among the most intelligent of birds," according to Galli, "but apparently
the swallows have a few tricks of their own that help us appreciate how
birds are constantly adapting to survive in novel human-created environments








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