It wasn’t until one day in mid-April of 1984 that we learned all those eight or ten barn swallow nests clinging to rafters of our 150 year old barn would in fact be occupied. Because we had moved in to our sadly neglected 200 year old farmhouse the previous December, we had no way of knowing if those nests were simply artifacts from the past, or nests waiting for the return of their builders.
In mid-April we got our answer. Two pairs of barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) began to line or repair two of the nests with fresh mud and bits of grass. It was a thrilling moment, one they have repeated every mid-April into very early May these past 36 years.
These diminutive birds, the most widespread species of swallow in the world, measure around 6” from tip of beak to tip of tail. They had just flown around 200 miles each day to make their way from their winter homes in South or Central America to the barn where they were born. In fact, when our son Nate and I met up for a few days in February in the late 1990’s at the Corcovado Natural Reserve in Costa Rica, we were as likely to see a barn swallow as a pair of Scarlet Macaws.
In the barnyard at Lower Farm in Hidcote Boyce in the Cotswolds where Mary grew up. Photo © Gordon Hayward
Mary has kept records of their arrival dates, just as her mother would have done at their farm in the North Cotswolds where Mary grew up. Her records show them arriving in our barn any day between April 15 – May 4. In 2019, four pairs arrived to set up home, the most we have ever had. And do the math: four pairs produce two clutches of four to five young, and they all stick around until ready to head south in late August.
I sat on a couch we have in the barn one day and was able to distinguish the male and female tending their young in a certain nest. The male and female would swoop into the barn, swerve up to the nest, feed one of the young – with all their mouths open – and then be gone back out into the 40 acres or so of meadow adjacent to our gardens. Each would be back in 2-3 minutes. Research shows that a single swallow can consume 60 or more insects – primarily mosquitoes, but also gnats and flying termites - in an hour or upwards to a 1,000 insects per day. Again, do the math. By the end of last summer we would have upwards to 35 swallows – 8 mature and around 20-30 young. Multiply 30 birds times 1,000 flying insects a day and you see why we are rarely bothered by mosquitoes in our garden except during a particularly rainy period. Talk about natural pest control…………………
Swallows carve
the azure air
like scimitars.
Climbing above
the sheltering elms,
weaving between cumulus clouds,
skimming
the spring-fed trough,
to swoop, nest-bound,
into the cavernous barn,
as Dad, shouldering
sweet hay for milk cows,
treads chamomile underfoot.
-Mary Hayward
And then there is the sheer entertainment these marvelous aerial acrobats offer up day in and day out. Their infectious love of life, their celebration of their own abilities never ceases to amaze. They swerve and soar, change direction in a heartbeat, dive right into the barn and in a split second are perched on the nest edge, feeding one of their young. They land in groups of three or more on our son’s basketball hoop that we put up around 1990 on the side of the barn, or on a suspended hoop in the barn. And they chatter and chatter. It’s all a miracle.
Photo © Gordon Hayward
And then there’s the poop. These little creatures present an ongoing clean-up project. I have my shirts professionally laundered and folded over a shirt cardboard. I save every one of those cardboards throughout the year to place under the swallow nests. They last for three or four days and then have to be replaced and we have a special mop just for cleaning up the barn floor from mid-May until late August. I put the used shirt cardboard in the burn pile across the road.
Another marvel is that Mary and I are able to talk to them. Our kitchen door leads out onto a 12’ long landing in the barn. There are always one or two nests occupied in the rafters 8’ above that landing. This means we can quietly walk out of the kitchen and approach within a few feet to a nest of parents and young and talk to them. They sit silently, looking at us and, we would like to believe, listening.
Photo © Gordon Hayward
And the adults talk to each other. There is one special run of song repeated many, many times a day wherein the swallow –we think most often it’s a male - repeats a long string of miraculously fast up-and-down notes ending in a sustained single ‘churrrrrrrr”. It’s humorous and irresistible. You can Google “Barn Swallow Songs” for lots of examples or click below for a sample.
Perhaps the most satisfying and harrowing moment comes when the young take their first flight. Some are brave and throw themselves off the edge and into the air. But it seems there is always one that is just not sure it’s a good idea to leave the nest. We watch these moments of indecision, imagining uncles and aunts, parents and siblings all swooping about sending messages of encouragement. And then the hapless little one launches, only to end up tangled in a spider web in one of our barn windows. We come to the rescue. We cup the fledgling in gloved hands, take it outside the barn and release it to a cacophony of twenty or so swallows greeting this young one.
Update On The Arrival of The Swallows- May 4th
One male with his rusty-brown chest feathers and two females with white breast feathers have been with us now for ten days. The male paired with one of the females, the second one looking a bit forlorn in the shadows, the male having expressed his displeasure with her on several occasions. This morning, May 4, what we think are five new swallows arrived as a group. The roughly 36' long area of the open barn, one section single story, the other two stories high, have been alive with either 7 or 8 swallows in a complete whirr. They're talking, chirring, and even a bit of fisticuffs resulting in two white chest feathers fluttering to the barn floor.
Bits of mud for relining nests are already appearing on the barn floor and the confab carries on, with swallows whirring in, whirling around and zooming out, chattering all the way, and then back in small groups. A pair of Starlings, the Dodo of New England birds, hasn't a clue what has just happened. She blunders in and lands through a whirr of swallows. And mother Robin, who has a nest with eggs in the fastigiate oak in the ell of the barn and house, has to totally adjust. She thought she had chosen a calm, peaceful corner tree to raise a family but that was before the second wave of swallows arrived this morning. We see her in the birch tree across the driveway wondering if it's safe to fly over to the nest for fear of running into a crosscurrent of swallows.
It's a grand day here. The natural order of things carries on with celebration on wing.