Comments on: Baby swallows

By: Troy Curtis Jr

Troy Curtis Jr — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 11:33:28 +0000

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!

By: Sergeant Zim

Sergeant Zim — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 13:40:38 +0000

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.

By: beeb

beeb — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 12:32:13 +0000

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

By: Luke

Luke — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:29:02 +0000

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

By: Thomas Siefert

Thomas Siefert — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 13:05:05 +0000

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.

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 10:52:54 +0000

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

By: Bill Bones

Bill Bones — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 10:17:07 +0000

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…

By: bassmanpete

bassmanpete — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 10:04:22 +0000

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.

By: Thomas Siefert

Thomas Siefert — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 09:54:51 +0000

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.

By: Malte

Malte — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 08:32:54 +0000

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…

By: bassmanpete

bassmanpete — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 08:16:14 +0000

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.

By: Philip From Australia

Philip From Australia — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 07:16:37 +0000

Phil, the chirping obviously works. You leave the chicks alone, don’t you?

PfA.

By: Thomas Siefert

Thomas Siefert — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 06:55:25 +0000

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.

By: Michael Preiss

Michael Preiss — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 04:56:14 +0000

# 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.

By: Troy

Troy — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 04:05:55 +0000

Quite interesting about the Aussie magpie.

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 03:20:35 +0000

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.

By: Qd

Qd — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 03:10:42 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-billed_Magpie

By: Qd

Qd — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 03:09:25 +0000

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

By: Kyle_Carm

Kyle_Carm — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 02:51:10 +0000

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)

By: Michelle

Michelle — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 02:20:45 +0000

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.

By: Srv

Srv — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 02:05:30 +0000

When I first saw “Baby swallows” I thought you were talking about an actual baby swallowing for the first time hehe

By: Ben Franklin

Ben Franklin — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 01:56:57 +0000

# 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).

By: Qd

Qd — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 01:20:06 +0000

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.

By: mcclellandjulia

mcclellandjulia — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 01:14:44 +0000

very cute birds,just don’t let the cat out! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

By: Jamie G.

Jamie G. — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 01:08:38 +0000

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.