Some of the most common birds you’ll see flying around in the canyon at
this time of year are the barn swallows. For most of the daylight
hours, they seem to be constantly in motion, circling above the lake
and the fishladder catching flying insects to take home to their young.
You can recognize them by their forked tails, brown undersides, and
dark blue backs.
As their name suggests, barn swallows make their homes in barns and
other human structures with high ceilings and wide doors. They build
their nests out of mud, carrying it home one mouthful at a time, and
they often return to the same nest and reuse it year after year. (The
nests are easy to spot by the mound of droppings that piles up on the
ground down below.)
Here at Reed, one of the best places to watch the swallows feed
their young is in the main, south doorway to Eliot Hall, where the
swallows have been nesting every summer for more than 20 years. If you
stand in a corner of the doorway and look up at the ceiling, you’ll see
a mud nest with 3 or 4 baby birds peering over the edge. And if you go
inside the glass doors and stand very still and quietly for a few
minutes, you’ll probably see one of the parents return with a mouthful
of bugs and spit it into a young birds mouth. The parents have been
busy with this routine for months now and this is actually the second
or third clutch of birds they’ve raised so far this summer.
For a close look at the acrobatics of barn swallows in flight, try
walking across the front lawn in the early morning when the grass is
still covered with dew. Swallows know that a walking human will stir up
a small cloud of insects, and so they’ll swoop down and fly in tight,
dizzying circles around your feet, darting in and out to grab whatever
pops up. Sometimes two or more birds will share the hunt and weave
their flights around you. For just a minute or so you’re in the middle
of your own little whirlwind, and then the birds zip off to share their
catch and you’re left alone in a sudden stillness to catch your breath.
– posted by Niels
