When we moved into our house in Boulder, it had been empty for some while. During that time, a mated pair of barn swallows had built a nest over our front porch light. A couple of weeks after we moved in, we noticed tiny heads popping out of the nest. We watched as the parents would feed their chicks, and finally, a month after we moved in, all three were big enough to see over the brim of the nest.
I got a surprise right after I took this image: all three chicks flew out of the nest! They are already expert fliers; swallows catch insects on the fly, and can turn rapidly in flight. This was proven to me by the parents, who are very protective of their chicks. When I stand near the nest, the parents fly circles above my head and dive in, only to veer away when they are a few inches from impact. It’s pretty impressive. They also sit on the eave a few feet away and chirp madly when I’m there. It’s supposed to scare me away, but it’s so darned cute!
July 7th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Yeah, real cute. Now get back inside and keep writing!
- Jack
July 7th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Nice… ya know, some people say the dove is the bird of love, but the bird of true love has to be the swallow… heh
Cute little guys, for sure. And BTW your review of the ‘Transformers’ movie was good too. And coming from a rabid fanboy, that’s high praise. Keep up the mental calisthenics… I’m looking forward to your new book.
July 7th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Yea, they’re really cute, right up until you notice they have pooped all over your porch…
July 7th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Well, like I said, the nest is right over our porch light. It doesn’t give off nearly as much light now as it used to…
July 7th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Sure the birdies are cute, and yes, as Triumph says, there are “things to poop on.”
But man, no posts about Aphelion Day, or the idiots who believe that today’s date has some significance? There are stupid people getting married today, and some women having their pregnancies’ labor induced just so their kids are born on 07/07/07.
Sheer Insanity!!!1
July 7th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Somebody has to ask, are they African or European swallows?
July 7th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
You could at least pretend to be scared.
July 7th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Tweet tweet - churp churp - meow meow (oh-oh!)
Cute boids.
July 7th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Neither, they’re American. The species is Hirundo rustica. The European subspecies, which winters in Africa, is H. r. rustica; the American subspecies is H. r. erythrogaster and it winters in South America. African & European Barn Swallows are the same bird.
July 7th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
We have House martins and Swifts in the town, there are about a dozen nests on the pub
July 7th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
We had some of these guys nest on our porch in Wisconsin. They are very cool birds, and the babies are super cute. When you see them flying around, you can tell the fledglings from the adults for a while by the white patches on the young birds’ tail feathers.
July 7th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Does anyone know the airspeed of an American Swallow carrying a coconut?
July 7th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
It could possibly grip it by the husk….
July 7th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Its not a question of where he grips it! Its simply a matter of weight ratios. A five ounce bird can not carry a 1 pound coconut!
July 7th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Two birds might…
July 7th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Great article. I love wild birds. The ‘diving’ of those swallows reminds me of a bird here in Australia. We are coming into spring in 2 months, which will start the ‘Magpie’ breeding season. ( I can hear all you Aussies shudder, haha, …..walking to school was so much fun. )
Most Australians have a love/hate relationship with these birds. Magpies sing beautifully, are extremely brave and will eat from your hand. Different codes of football have teams named after Magpies.
They are hated at this time of year due to this aggressive dive bombing, (like the swallows in the article, protecting their nests. Generally they will attempt to bite an ear or peck the side of your head. Both are very unpleasant experiences, sometimes resulting in ringing ears from the loud snap their beaks make, or in a worse case, drawing blood. Some people on rare occasions get pecked in the eye, which is really their main target.
They have a very large, but clearly defined patrol area when protecting nests. A bird can spot you a few kilometers away and will reach a a great height, stall, then free fall into a spiral, performing some of the most amazing aerial acrobatics you will see bird perform ….. right before they ‘dive bomb’ into your head.
Some of them can reach sizes comparable to a small crow, so when ones diving at you, you generally throw your arms up and run for cover. They also like to attack in packs, like wolves, from different directions, which is a whole other story. RUN FOR COVER ! eheh
Many people have different methods for deterring them, Postmen draw ‘eyes’ on the backs of their helmets (many get used to it and let them hit their helmets), school kids put their schoolbags on their head, and many people just walk backwards while keeping an eye on the tree they are coming from, as they generally attack from behind, when you aren’t looking. It can sometimes give you a real scare. The tried and true method is to wave an item above your head. This generally deters the bird at the last second. Some old and more aggressive Magpies are too smart for this, and dive right through, so cover is the only option.
There is a nice page below describing it in more detail. If you notice the picture of the postman on that page, thats basically my position. I’m a postman in Australia, the most desirable target for any Magpie. The routine of postmen makes the Magpie, just like dogs, expect you coming. Sometimes I have gone past an ‘attack’ zone, and not been attacked, on to endure an attack that is twice as aggressive, on the way back. It’s like they are making up for missing you the first time round.
On any given day during the season , I and other postmen, can endure hours of aggressive dive bombing from these ironically beautiful birds. Lucky we have helmets due to riding motorbikes, but they will always try to reach around from behind and peck you in the temple area or eyes. Safety glasses are a must during this time of year.
Check this link for more detail on Magpies, one of Australia most iconic animals.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/scribblygum/July2002/
July 7th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
I did say run …. but forgot … one of the best methods for deterring further attacks, is to walk very slowly, while looking directly at the bird, until out of the attack zone.
They generally like to attack people on bikes, horses, or joggers.
July 7th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Another “at home writer” chiming in here with my story of bird-watching. I have a robin’s nest on the outside corner of my office (our house is a log home with log “ends” sticking out at the corners). Each year we have “cleaning of the nest” and then “mating” (which we don’t see), then egg-laying. Then hatching. Then, eventually, we get “flight test.” And then, they’re gone and off in the world, hopefully to return the next year for more family values among the robins. It’s great fun to watch them.
July 7th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
# Michael Preiss Says:
July 7th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Does anyone know the airspeed of an American Swallow carrying a coconut?
9.8 m/s^2
July 7th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
HAHA
July 7th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Hope you don’t have swallows with vision problems, they might not gage the right distance to turn, and the next thing you know you are in the emergency room.
July 7th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
very cute birds,just don’t let the cat out! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
July 7th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Jamie G : Swallows are fluffy toys compared to Aussie Magpies. They actually attack the eyes, or the temple area or bite your ears. They are far bigger and more aggressive. Posted about then about 7 or so posts back.
July 7th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
# CafeenMan Says:
July 7th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
# Michael Preiss Says:
July 7th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Does anyone know the airspeed of an American Swallow carrying a coconut?
9.8 m/s^2
Actually, that is its’ acceleration. To be even more pedantic, that is its’ acceleration until it reaches terminal velocity. Although the most “terminal” velocity will be 0 m/s (it hit the ground).
July 7th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
When I first saw “Baby swallows” I thought you were talking about an actual baby swallowing for the first time hehe
July 7th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Oh AWWW! They’re so adorable.
I’m currently raising a clutch of budgerigars (commonly called parakeets for people who don’t know) so I’m sorta overly sensitive to baby bird cuteness right now.
July 7th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Hey QD your magpies are different looking than American magpies, in fact the white and the black are almost exactly opposite. I guess your animals Down Under do thing backwards just like the people.
(Just jokes)
July 7th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Kyle_Carm : Yes. The main difference is overall bulk. Aussie Magpies are the size of a small crow. They have heavy white beaks and a very large wingspan. They are also very, very aggressive during nesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Magpie
July 7th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-billed_Magpie
July 7th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
We have magpies here in Boulder, too, though they tend to stick nearer the mountains a few kilometers west of my house.
We have a robin nest too, but I don’t think the eggs hatched; we checked the nest recently (long story) and it was empty; I think other birds ate the eggs.
Also the sparrows seem to have taken over the empty nest! This is a weird place.
July 7th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Quite interesting about the Aussie magpie.
July 7th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
# CafeenMan Says:
July 7th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
9.8 m/s^2
Technically it’s a rate, not a speed. It was still funny, though.
July 8th, 2007 at 12:55 am
When we lived in Sydney we had a pair of Magpies nesting in a nearby tree, the female only had one leg but that never seemed to slow her down. They never attacked us when we where out on the balcony, but they would go for the Rainbow Lorikeets that had made it a habit of gathering their flock in the trees around our house every night before they settled down for the night.
Living away from Australia at the moment, I’ve found that I might have regained the beautiful song of the Blackbird, but that I miss the song of the Australian Magpie.
July 8th, 2007 at 1:16 am
Phil, the chirping obviously works. You leave the chicks alone, don’t you?
PfA.
July 8th, 2007 at 2:16 am
Hi Qd. Last summer I was driving up Blackburn Road here in Melbourne. A postie was coming in the opposite direction on his motorbike followed by a Magpie at full speed. It whacked him on the helmet, went into a vertical climb then headed back to wards its lookout tree. Very amusing from my point of view!
Thomas Siefert, didn’t you see/hear any Blackbirds in Sydney? They were introduced into Australia in Melbourne (where they are now VERY common) in the mid 1800s and have since spread over most of the South-East of the country, including some parts of Sydney.
July 8th, 2007 at 2:32 am
This could have been an ideal opportunity to talk about the astronomer/birder overlap. I’m part of it, and so are a significant minority of the (supernova, actually) astronomers where I work in Stockholm. Personally I think it’s a binoculars thing, but I could be wrong…
July 8th, 2007 at 3:54 am
bassmanpete, No I never saw or heard any Blackbirds in Sydney although I was told that they where around. With the amount of other noisy birds in Sydney and Australia in general, their song would be drowned out completely anyway.
Here in London I can enjoy the song of Blackbirds on my way to the Tube in the morning and through the kitchen window in the evening, only challenged by other birds with equally beautiful songs.
Once, when I was still new to Australia, I came home late from work one evening and to my amazement I found a parking spot on our own road. The next morning I discovered that I, the ignorant foreigner, had parked under a roosting tree of Rainbow Lorikeets and that my car was now completely covered in the yellow/green goo that make up their liquid faeces.
July 8th, 2007 at 4:04 am
Hi Malte, I agree. I’ve been a birdwatcher since I was a kid in the ’50s with a strong interest in astronomy too. Recently acquired a pair of Canon Image Stabilizer binoculars which are just GREAT for both pastimes. I had read that they chew through batteries in no time but I’ve used them a lot since getting them in February & still haven’t changed the original batteries. I’d definitely recommend them.
July 8th, 2007 at 4:17 am
There’s a superstition here claiming that swallows bring luck to the home holding their nests and so it’s a wrong idea to remove a swallow nest.
Anyway removing the nests is gratuitous unless they’re dropping their poo on something valuable…
July 8th, 2007 at 4:52 am
The climate shift now has hummingbirds wintering over here in Georgia, when they USED to have to fly to Mexico.
Yeah, there ani’t no global warming.
RIIIIGHT
GAry 7
July 8th, 2007 at 7:05 am
A climate change is not necessarily proof of global warming, also local climate changes caused by global warming could very well turn out to be cooler.
July 9th, 2007 at 5:29 am
One of my favorite things to do on a lazy sunday afternoon is to get out my birdsong CD (the kind with each species on a seperate track, ment for birdwatchers, not the hippie kind used for “atmosphere”), and play it on a boombox on my back porch.
You can attract birds from miles around, and they each go nuts when you play their call!
Then I play a hawk, and everything gets reeeaaal quiet… XD
July 9th, 2007 at 6:32 am
I know that this isn’t about swallows but Eastern Phoebes. They are also insect eaters like swallows. The Phoebes don’t attack anybody so they were welcome guests and they eat a lot of deer and horse flies. The problem I found with these little critters is that they ate some kind of insect, tick or mite that reproduced in their fecal material that happened to rest under our deck. My first encounter was leaning against the deck rail and feeling little red pests crawling on my arm. They were smaller than a small flake of pepper and died easily as I squashed them on my arm. I got some bug spray and killed them. I thought!
I then found a nest in my lean to over my front boat seat where my 91 year old father sat when we fished. Well the feces dropped on his boat seat and I cleaned it off and didn’t notice the critters on his seat. So to protect it further and to keep it “clean” I placed a shield over the seat and thought nothing more of it.
About three days after the shield we went fishing and two days after that dad was scratching his belly at the belt line. The area looked like he had a case of shingles and I gave him some cream to help with the itching. I still didn’t have a clue to the Phoebes feces producing the problem and they are sooooo cute and beneficial. Plus they return every year.
Well I finally took a closer look at his boat seat and found literally hundreds of thousands of these little mites. They have 8 as legs seen under a magnifying glass. They had moved all over the 16 foot boat. At least they didn’t look for hiding places but climbed to the highest point they could such as the gunnel of the boat where I leaned and found myself crawling with them By the time I noticed them I must have had several hundred on my arms and belly. I couldn’t kill all of them so they burrowed into my skin also and itched like crazy. Good thing they only lasted for a couple days of misery. I ended up tearing down the nest which had served it’s purpose for reproduction and sprayed the whole boat and then cleaned it with bleach and had no further problems. Until this spring when they came back and tried to nest over the boat again. I tried every maneuver to discourage the little birds from making the nest over the boat. I finally cut a gallon milk jug in half and placed it above the light where she was trying to rebuild the nest and that solved my problem.
The original pair is still nesting under the deck this year but I’ve found none of the mites. I guess they haven’t eaten the kind of critter they did last year that produced the hassles for us.
They are really cool little birds as I watch them skim over the head of the deer in my back yard catching deer flies. The deer are grateful to say the least as are we.
beeb
July 9th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Gary, the issue of hummingbirds overwintering in the wrong place might be due to GW, or it might be due to human intervention. I lived in Santa Cruz, CA in the 80’s, and I recall several PSA’s from the local TV and radio stations, asking people to bring in their hummingbird feeders in the Fall. Local biologists were concerned that if food was plentiful during the time that the hummers should have been packing the car for the long trip, they might decide not to go at all, thus disrupting the mating and endangering the species.
July 10th, 2007 at 5:33 am
What do you know, like many others, I too have a Swallow nest.
This nest is just to the side of our front door so it can be a pretty big mess! A while back we noticed several eggshells littering the ground under the nest and were very happy we were playing host to some baby birds. However, a week later (or more, I don’t really remember) we found 4 little dead baby birds 
. It was quite sad. The swallow couple stuck around and I just noticed a week or two ago we found a couple more little egg shells! I guess they’re having another set. Which is great because the only reason we are content to let them nest their was for the sake of the little guys!