Close cousin of the purple martin is our hard-working summertime visitor, the barn swallow. If you live on or near a pond or lake almost anywhere in the continental United States and southern Canada, you may have a love/hate relationship with these remarkable birds.  Barn swallows, with their rusty-orange breasts and deep indigo wings and back, can be distinguished from purple martins when observed in flight, the difference being the long forked tail of the barn swallow. 

Large flocks of barn swallows arrive here in early spring, having wintered in Central and South America, to breed and build mud nests in stables, open sheds, and under the eaves of houses, often to the consternation of human residents.  So when the swallows arrive in mid- to late-April, with their aerial acrobatics and happy chirps, we know spring has arrived and it’s time for the crops to be planted.

Barn swallows are extremely agile flyers, each one scooping up mosquitoes, flies, gnats and other flying insects at a rate of 60 bugs per hour!  They feed from dawn to dusk, devouring up to 850 flying insects each day.  Close to our duck pond is the horse barn that hosts dozens of swallow families every year, and because of these busy birds we can sit outdoors without ever being bitten by a mosquito.  That’s the good news.

The bad news is that swallows are extremely messy, and in addition to the stables, every year they try to nest under the eaves of our house.  Once nestlings have started to hatch, we don’t have the heart to destroy them, regardless of the gallons of messy output we’ll have to scrape off the sides of the house and the driveway. Furthermore, these birds are now federally protected, and any occupied nest cannot be removed without a permit from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. But over time we have installed nail boards under all the eaves of our house to deter them from ever starting to build a nest there in the first place—a win-win solution. 

Sadly, with habitat loss and the widespread use of pesticides, the barn swallow populations have decreased about 90 percent across North America over the last 40 years.

I love these little birds, and over a summer I feel they begin to know me and to realize I’m no danger to them.  On my daily walks around the property, a swallow or two will swoop down and literally fly circles around me, just a few inches above the ground.  It feels like a friendly hello and a sign of gratitude for allowing them to share the stables for safe nesting and a rich feeding ground for raising their families.

Another interesting and informative article about barn swallows is: The Barn Swallow – A Symbol Of Spring. This article also features a short video showing some of the swallow behavior. 

Adelia Ritchie grew up on a northern Virginia farm, with horses, cattle, dogs, and her pet pig Porky, who ran the whole show. A long-time resident of the great Pacific Northwest, Adelia is a serial entrepreneur, scientist, educator, and artist. She received a B.S. in Chemistry and Physics from the University of West Florida, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry from Northwestern University. In June 2017, she completed the Climate Reality Leadership training program under the Hon. Al Gore, and currently works with educators, organizers and strategists to promote a deeper understanding of the science of climate change and its impacts on the complex ecological web of life. Adelia resides in Hansville, WA, with her garden, her dogs and a flock of very entertaining chickens.

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