BARN SWALLOWS
by
Walter L. Meagher
Photos by Wayne Colony
I love swallows. Everything they do - the way they fly, the way they sit - makes me happy. Other birds are interesting, some are impressive, many are well-behaved; only swallows are well-mannered, well-dressed, polite and collegial.
I live in Atascadero above El Centro, at the edge of the ever-expanding city, a homunculus becoming a Goliath. Pigeons are more common in the Plaza Civica; up here, the White-winged Dove and the Inca Dove are quiet residents but they tend to be skittish.
Two species of hummingbirds, always in a rush, visit the garden regularly; both Kiskadees (in small numbers) and Great-tailed Grackles (in flocks) are noisy and boastful. All these birds have this is common: they live in association with man’s dwellings.
Barn Swallows are like swifts, trim and aerobatic. Males dress as Edwardian gentlemen, underlining the value of form in artistic composition. Color is subdued: the attractive chestnut-colored cravat and cinnamon breast contrast with the iridescent blue back. As barns disappear in the farm fields of America, swallow populations may decline. Before there were barns, there were caves; 5,000 years ago, man and swallow might have shared the same room. This relationship – Barn Swallow as man-dependent - is exhibited in Atascadero where there is an unattractive conurbation of wires outside our patio, five of which are regularly used by the swallows.
The wires form a stave on which the birds are musical notes. Day by day in early October, swallows - in ever-larger associations - gather on the stave, getting ready for the great migration south. The sight of their companionability is appealing. Coming to the wires, one bird arrives; another arrives and settles next to the first; a third arrives, a little farther away, and then sidles along the wire, adjusting the space, so that it is near the second bird. Groups of five (or four or six) form in this way. Then, between the last of the first group and the first of a second group, there is greater distance. Barn Swallows sit near one another; only a small percentage – these are the Henry David Thoreau swallows – take a place far from others, showing no interest in joining a group. Nevertheless, the swallows on the wires are a nation of swallows; they act in concert.
They are gathering in our street from far and wide in San Miguel, the great ‘coming together’, preparatory for migration. Sitting on the wires they will, all of a sudden, without command from a leader, fly away, high, high, high into the blue sky, to feed awhile, and take a turn in the space they may call their own.
When grackles pass the patio, they fly in a straight line; they are on an errand, trained by a culture of linear thought patterns. Barn Swallows are not erratic, like butterflies; instead, they fly in loops, elements of a post-Euclidean geometry. Darting, diving and looping, I can see them from my bedroom window, flying over spaces north of the Prolongacion Cuesta San Jose, up to the canyon edge of El Charco. Then they return to the stave, resume chattering and begin cleaning themselves. The base of the small bill is rubbed against a wire, as I might use a napkin. Are there parasites on the bill? Most attention is given to cleaning armpits, cosy warm habitats for mites that travel wherever swallows travel; mites under the upper tail coverts, where they overlap the base of the tail feathers, are wrestled free, too. To sum up: in the daylight hours, when we can see the swallows, they do three things: sit on the wires (close to each other) chattering; they clean themselves; and fly away intermittently to feed, chase and glide, returning to sit, chat and preen. One day soon - too soon - they will be gone.
SWALLOW DIARY:
Number of Birds on the Wires
23 September @ 8.45 a.m., cloud & rain = 45
24 September @ 8.45 a.m., cloud & sun = 35
25 September @ 8.45 a.m., cloudy, warmer = 30
26 September @ 8.45 a.m., cloud & chilly = 16
27 September @ 8.45 a.m., sunny & chilly = 46
28 September @ 8.45 a.m. = 33
29 September @ 8.45 a.m. = 40
01 October @ 8.45 a.m., sunny & chilly = 47
02 October @ 8.45 a.m., blue sky & chilly = 37
03 October @ 8.45 a.m., blue sky & chilly = 105
04 October @ 8.45 a.m., blue sky & chilly = 65
05 October @ 8.45 a.m., chilly = none!
06 October @ 8.45 a.m., no record
07 October @ 8.45 a.m., foggy & warmer = 172
from now on @ 8.45 a.m. there were hardly any birds on the wires; they gathered later, and more frequently
08 October @ 8.55 a.m., cloudy, warm & light rain = 11
09 October @ 10.50 a.m., cloudy & warm = 105
10 October @ 8.45 a.m., foggy & warm = 10
11 October @ 10.00 a.m., cloudy & warm = 76
12 October @ 9.30 a.m., blue sky, some cloud & warm = 73
Note: Adapted from Wild & Wonderful: Nature Up Close in the Botanical Garden ‘El Charco del Ingenio’ by Walter L. Meagher, photographs by Wayne Colony.