Subject: [Tweeters] Re:Question about dead swallows
Date: Jun 24 12:20:25 2012
From: Blake Iverson - coopershwk at gmail.com


Linda,

Weather definitely could have a role in the young's health. But it's hard
to determine without looking at the young and estimating their age just how
vulnerable they may have been with yesterday's poor weather. One parent can
feed five offspring (it's a lot of work though) without a problem but this
all depends on their food source and how far they have to travel to obtain
a full crop. Sometimes five is overwhelming and the youngest suffer from it
and usually parish. A lot of factors aren't known though which could have a
direct effect on the young's survival rate over there.

If you have house sparrows around, this incident also has the MO of a house
sparrow attack. House sparrows don't commandeer barn swallow nests as
frequently as other swallow nests since the barn swallow nest is an open
cup nest but house sparrows are known to get aggressive with other nesting
birds and throw out offspring even though they may already have a nest of
their own. Many purple martin landlords back east have witness retaliation
attacks against nesting birds by house sparrows after a sparrow nest has
failed for one reason or another.

Sorry to hear about the birds; barn swallows are one of my favorites.
Hopefully parents will re-nest here soon and you can enjoy some more
babies.

--
*Blake Iverson*
Northwest Mosaic Canary Aviary
Marysville, WA
https://sites.google.com/site/nwmosaiccanary/
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