March is a month of transitions. Wintering ducks clear out. Sandhill Cranes are flying high overhead, going north to staging areas on the Platte River in Nebraska. Listen for their haunting calls. Most of the migrants who spend the summer here have not yet arrived. All our local resident birds are full-throatedly busy attracting mates and checking out possible nest sites. The Golden-cheeked Warbler, a highly anticipated March arrival, is due any day now. It’s exciting to hear and/or see one’s first of the year Purple Martin or other swallow species. Bird life is changing daily. Get outside and tune in.
One of the migrants that shows up in Austin beginning in mid-February is the Barn Swallow. It is 6.75 inches in length, with long, slender, angular wings. Its flight is fluid and appears effortless. It has steely blue-black feathers on its head, back and wings, with a rusty/orange throat and variable tones of orange on its breast and belly depending on its sex and age. Females are paler below, with some almost looking white. The adults have deeply forked tails with two long streamers. The male’s tail is longer than the female’s. Young birds can be confused with other swallow species, but they will have white dots on their spread tails that no other swallow in Austin has. Fortunately for us, Barn Swallows often fly low to the ground while foraging, so we can see the beautiful colors of their backs and the band of white dots on their tails too.
Most likely, Austin’s early birds are from southern Mexico and Central America. The ones from South America have farther to go. They will hopscotch over Austin’s local breeders during peak migration of mid-March to mid-May to spread out across the U.S and Canada. They will time their arrival at higher latitudes for April and May, when the weather is more conducive to flying insects, which are their primary food.
Not only found in the Americas, the Barn Swallow also occurs worldwide, with some slight variations by subspecies. In summer, they breed in Eurasia, and in winter, they make their way to southern Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and the coast of northern Australia. They are “the most widely distributed and abundant swallow in the world,” according to Birds of the World.
Barn Swallows have a long association with people in Europe, and besides being harbingers of spring, are considered signs of good luck. In farming culture in England, removing swallow nests could bring misfortune in the form of bloody milk from cows or lightning strikes. In 1496, Milan, Italy, issued the first decree that forbade interfering with nesting birds. American Barn Swallows were popular in the late 1800s to 1920s as ornaments on women’s hats, which indirectly led to the birth of the first Audubon Society in North America that urged their protection.
Just like other songbirds, the Barn Swallow’s main task upon return to the breeding grounds is to have progeny. Barn Swallows’ range has expanded with the increased number of human structures that are desirable as nesting sites. As their name implies, Barn Swallows do like to have a roof of some kind over their heads. Originally, they mainly nested in caves, but now they nest under the eaves of buildings (sometimes to the tenants’ chagrin). They also use culverts, although in Texas, sometimes those are taken over by Cave Swallows. The swallows attach their nest to a vertical wall underneath a horizontal overhang or on ledges underneath overhangs, such as can be found under bridges. Their preference is to have water close by, as mud is a key ingredient in a successful nest construction, with some 1200 trips involved in creating a new nest. Because new nests are so labor-intensive, birds do reuse old nests if they don’t have too many parasites, which could jeopardize the nestlings’ health. Studies in different locales showed that some nests can be built in 6 days, but others may take 15, depending on the weather.
Nestlings have bright yellow lipstick gapes that help parents deliver food in low-light settings. The gape color also lets the parents know which nestling needs the food the most. Nestlings fledge at about 20 days, and the parents feed them for another 2 weeks. Then the fledglings are on their own, and they seek out other fledglings. July and August in Austin are good times to see lots of fledglings, is on utility wires close to a wetland where many young birds gather. The ponds at Hornsby Bend in east Austin are a great place to study these swallows.
There are so many interesting facts about Barn Swallows. Here are just a few:
Barn Swallows drink and bathe on the wing. If they should fall in, the swallows can swim, using a butterfly stroke to get to shore or to some object that they can climb onto.
Sometimes parents have a helper bird that assists with nesting tasks. However, this is known to backfire on occasion if the adult helper is male. In its quest to pass on its genes, it may kill the nestlings. This often causes the parents to divorce, in which case the interloper can breed with the female. It’s considered a breeding strategy…