Subject: [Tweeters] Swallows (with apologies, long & speculative)
Date: May 19 22:02:09 2008
From: Ed Newbold - ednewbold1 at yahoo.com



Hi all,

I was inside the kitchen when I heard a terrific commotion. Our Barn Swallows were flying in low and doing their loud Ba-cheek call incessantly?and even the normally calm Violet-green Swallows were getting involved.

I lifted the shade in time to see an audacious crow on the ground foraging for grubs within a 20 ft. radius of our front stoop where the Barn Swallows are planning to nest. The nerve of some Crows! I came bursting out the door and the Crow immediately removed itself and the swallows began to calm down, although not before telling me to scram now that my work was done.

I admit this is complete speculation, but I wondered today when all this happened if it were possible that when Barn Swallows conduct high-energy defensive maneuvers before they have anything to defend (not even any masonry), if they are testing out the dynamics of their chosen nest site and its human residents, to see if it has functionality. Barn Swallows have a certain amount of ability to intimidate, as anyone who has been bombed by one will attest, but their real weapon is their loud danger-call and general ability to create a commotion which calls out human reinforcement. The human-Hirundinidae relationship, now eroding in some places, has worked for farmers all over the world in a symbiotic way as Barn Swallows call attention to the presence of both?s mutual enemy, the Corvid. Indians protected Martins (and presumably Swallows) and put out gourds to get Martins to colony-nest over top of maize-growing sites and serve as an early-warning and defensive line
against Crows. The colony-nesting of Martins in the East is the result of this practice; in the West Indians didn?t grow Maize and Martins in the West were much less colonial prior to the advent of the current Martin-stewardship movement. (This all I learned from the late, great Kevin Li and Stan Kostka and my apologies if I misstated the known facts in any way or overstated the known causal-link).


I came to Seattle?s Cascade district in 1976 and one nice day in the spring of 1977 I took a long walk around North Capitol Hill to get to know my new town. I was positively blown away by the number of nesting Barn and Violet-green Swallows in the residential zone with many flying around to nests and so forth at street level. They were literally every where you looked, and the ratio between the two species was about equal. At the time, there were still Purple Martins nesting downtown, Cliff Swallows nested in Fremont and, as I would soon learn, a Nighthawk calling over each neighborhood including the downtown in the high summer.

Wildlife Biology is nothing like Rocket Science?it is massively harder because nobody has time for the research. Both Violet-greens and Barns are still present in town but to my unscientific eye in significantly lower numbers, and seemingly gone from some locations altogether. However, this year seems to have reversed the trend right around us on Beacon Hill a bit with Violet-greens being more scarce except around our very local area but Barn Swallow couples here in force, in all the historical sites they occupied in the 90s plus some.

Well, here?s my point, I hope I?m not just inflicting an old man?s nostalgia on a captive tweeter audience. I don?t know if these are the actual limiting factors for the population, probably no one knows this, but Violet-green Swallows seem to lack good housing in this town. Yesterday right near the farmer?s market in West Seattle , we saw Violet-green Swallows in energetic combat over a very pathetic-looking air duct that might provide no protection from predation. I believe all the Wild Birds Unlimited Stores sell Violet-green Swallow boxes and so now does the Seattle Audubon Shop. Anyone with eaves and a high drop-off should consider putting up a Violet-green Swallow box right up under the eaves.

For Barn Swallows, they can only build a structurally-sound nest if they have some kind of a ledge to nest on. Adding a 2 x 4 inch sliver of wood that can serve as a nest platform in the most protected upper corner right under the roof of a carport or porch or front stoop (they like active portals where humans come in and out so they can get the help when they need it) can allow a Barn Swallow family a chance to reproduce.

The other thing is a mud bath. It?s a functionally dry spring despite the predicted rain tonight and it?s possible that Barn Swallows are limited when there?s no mud around. A 2 x 2 ft. butyl scrap can be used to line a depression. Add mud and place outside in an open area where there are no predator blinds. The Oasis water garden store on South Brandon St. in Seattle sells scraps of butyl, I got one the other day for $3 bucks. Put in clay-based soil and add water and mix it every day. Robins will thank you also.

I like the daily mud-mixing ritual, it takes me back to my childhood.

Thanks all for your patience, thanks to all of you who are way ahead of me already on this, and Happy Hirundinidae Helping!


Ed Newbold residential Beacon Hill, where there?s been no flycatchers yet at Butyl Creek but a record-tying 8 warbler sp. Yardbirdrace at yahoo.com or ednewbold1 at yahoo.com