Barn swallow

“ Tail: The tail of the Barn Swallow is deeply forked. When perched, these long protruding outer tail feathers serve to distinguish the Barn Swallow from all other native Swallows.
Song: The gentle twitter of the Barn Swallow is a familiar sound about many a farm where an old barn or other outbuilding may provide a nesting site. It is a musical sound that changes to a “kit-tic—kit-tic” when the bird becomes excited.
Nest: The cup-shaped nest of the Barn Swallow is made of mud and is lined with grass and feathers. ”

“ The barn swallow, as we have seen, chooses to nest upon the rafters inside the barn, but the eave swallow is content to stay outside under the shelter of a projecting roof. In such a place you find not one, but several or many mud tenements plastered in a row against the wall, for eave swallows are always remarkably sociable, even at the nesting season. A photograph of a colony I have seen shows one hundred and fifteen nests nearly all of which touch one another. ”

“ The common barn swallow is one of the most interesting. It does not come much among us at the north, till the settled warm weather of May. A straggler now and then appears before, which has led to the adage, “One swallow does not make summer.” ”

“ The beautiful violet-green swallow of the Rocky Mountains, Vaux Chimney Swift, on the Columbia, and the rough-winged swallow of Louisiana.
The barn-swallow resembles, in many respects, the European chimney-swallow; yet it is, in fact, a different variety—entirely American. Where the European bird is white, ours is bright chestnut. They are one of the most numerous birds we have; scarcely a barn in the country is without them; they seldom choose any other building for their home. ”

“ Naturally, these birds are inhabitants of caves and rocky cliffs, or of hollow trees; but, like the swifts, the moment a man builds a house or barn in Europe, or Asia, or South America, there certain swallows are sure to come to live with him, just as they do around our village and farm houses in North America. Hence the English people call their common species house-swallow, and we give the name barn-swallow to our similar one. ”

“ The barn swallow, as we would call it,—chimney swallow, as it is called there,—is much the same in voice, color, form, flight, etc., as our bird, while the swift is much larger than our chimney swallow and has a forked tail. The martlet, answering to our cliff swallow, is not so strong and ruddy looking a bird as our species, but it builds much the same, and has a similar note. It is more plentiful than our swallow. I was soon struck with the fact that in the main the British song-birds lead up to and culminate in two species, namely, in the lark and the nightingale. ”

“ The Phoebe, a Flycatcher—7 inches
16 THE BARN SWALLOW
The Barn Swallows arrive in the North toward the end of April and leave early in September. They are sociable birds and travel in huge flocks.
Food: Insects, caught upon the wing, form the diet of those Swallows. They dart here and there, over field and water, catching their prey in swift, graceful flight.
Feet: Often, in the season of migration, thousands of Swallows perch upon telephone wires, sometimes in such large numbers that the wires are broken. Their small feet are well suited for this, but not for walking upon the ground. ”

“ It is almost always on the wing. Its feet are so seldom used that they are very weak. The chimney swallow has a bristly tail, which assists in its support when the bird alights. Its color is a sooty gray. Of the true swallows none is more familiar than the barn swallow, whose nest adds a picturesque interest to the eaves of the building. This swallow has a steel blue coat, a pale chestnut vest, with a bit of chocolate on chin and throat. The tail is deeply forked. It is not a noisy bird, but has a song—a little trill—aside from the note it uses when flying. ”

“ Tree Swallows are gray and white beneath,” said daddy.
“Sometimes they build their nests out of grass with feathers for the lining; in fact, that is the way they usually do, but they sometimes like to find bird homes already made for them.
“They sing or make a little chirping sound as their other swallow cousins do. They usually build their nests in hollow trees and like to sit on old branches, so they have been called the Tree Swallows, for their cousins, the Barn Swallows, build their homes around barns. ”

“ This is odd work for a bird that almost lives in the air; and then think, too, of sitting in a dark cave, sometimes six feet long, until the eggs are hatched. On the other hand, the barn swallow makes a nest where there is plenty of light and air, and is a mason rather than a carpenter or miner. The mud he uses is not mere earth and water, but is made more adherent by a trace of secretion from the bird’s mouth; at least, my experiments lead me to think so. To build such a nest would be slow work did not the two birds work together and carry their little loads of mortar with great rapidity. ”

“ A little farther on stands a great barn with huge mows and the big hay doors front and rear always hospitably open to the scores of barn swallows that build on the beams up next the roof. In no barn have I found quite so many swallows at home. At every vantage point on a beam, wherever a corner of a timber or a locking pin protrudes to give a support, nests have been built, generation following generation till some of the structures are curious, deep, inverted mud pyramids, topped with straw and grass and lined with feathers, downy beds for the clamorous young. ”

“ It is not yet very warm, but here under the eaves on the sunny side of the barn it is quite comfortable.
"We are so busy with this nest-building and settling for the summer. You see we swallows do not live alone. There are always flocks of us together.
"We should be lonely if we lived only in pairs. That is the reason that we build a whole little village of nests under your eaves."
"You build very queer nests," said Phyllis. "They are neither like the robin's nor the chickadee's nests."
"No, indeed, no robin or chickadee could build such nests as the swallow. ”

“ Nervousness and loquacity are poor hands at preserving a secret.
Although my first brief visit to Stewart’s Pond made three additions to my local bird list (the third being a pair of brown creepers) , I did not go that way again for almost a fortnight. Then (May 21) my feet were barely on the bridge before a barn swallow skimmed past me. Swallows of any kind in the mountains of North Carolina are like hen-hawks in Massachusetts,—rare enough to be worth following out of sight. As for barn swallows, I had not expected to see them here at all. ”

“ Barn swallows are usually friendly, confiding birds. They seem here to have caught the sense of protection and safety which comes to all on the little island, and become even more fearless. It is much the same way with the tree swallows, which, having no hollow trees, build in bird boxes all about. These already have young in flight. Standing on the cliffs you see their steel blue backs as they swirl with the little waves in and out among the rockweed at low tide, seeking their food very close to land or water. ”

“ There are several species of swallow, or martin, which take advantage of man's structures in or on which to place their nests, but the most numerous, the most familiar to people in general, and perhaps the most attractive, is the Barn Swallow. This is the only species whose outer tail feathers are long and pointed, and form 8with the rest of the tail the peculiar figure known as "swallow-tail." The head, back, wings, and tail are all of a beautiful lustrous blue, and the tail, when spread, shows large white spots in the inner feathers. ”

“ All birds of species which love the shade of the woodlands are of course undisturbed by sparrows, which seek open spaces near dwellings, not the forests. Nor will it be claimed that larger birds, such as the robin, suffer from the presence of the sparrows. With us the barn-swallow is among the most peaceful and unobtrusive of birds, and yet it does not seem to be in any great fear of the sparrows, as the following incident will show: A pair of swallows commenced building a nest under a shed on my premises, but a sparrow was soon seen sitting on the side of the half-finished structure. ”

“ In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu swala, the barn swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe there are no chimneys to houses, except they are English-built: in these countries she constructs her nest in porches, and gateways, and galleries, and open halls.
Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar place; as we have known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well, through which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the purpose of manure: but in general with us this hirundo breeds in chimneys, and p. ”

“ A Swallow flew down from his nest and passed over her head, then out of the open window. "Kittens!" said he. "Kittens!" He flew over the fields and saw two Horses standing by the fence while the farmer was oiling his machine. "We have new neighbors in the barn," said he, "and the Cat is purring louder than ever." ”

“ With the settlement and cultivation of the country, the means of subsistence of nearly every species are vastly increased. Insects are more numerous, and seeds of weeds and grasses more abundant. They become more and more domestic, like the English birds. The swallows have nearly all left their original abodes—hollow trees, and cliffs, and rocks—for human habitations and their environments. Where did the barn swallow nest before the country was settled? ”

“ When there is just light enough to distinguish the birds, we may observe, here and there, a single swallow perched on the roof of a barn or shed, repeating two twittering notes incessantly, with a quick turn and a hop at every note he utters. ”

“ Besides the wrens and bluebirds, the robins built under the eaves of the wood-shed, and became exceedingly tame. The more social swallow took possession of every convenient nestling-place about the barn, while troops of little sparrows came confidingly to the kitchen door to pick up the crumbs of bread which the children scattered on the pavement as soon as they discovered that these innocent little creatures were fond of them. ”

“ Then they looked around [Pg 3] at the farmer, and wished that he knew enough of the farmyard language to understand what they wanted to tell him. They knew he would be glad to hear of their friends' return, for had they not seen him pick up a young Swallow one day and put him in a safer place?
"Tittle-ittle-ittle-ee!" and there was a sudden darkening of the sky above their heads, a whirr of many wings, a chattering and laughing of soft voices, and the Swallows had come. Perched on the ridge-pole of the big barn, they rested and visited and heard all the news. ”

“ These Swallows are also abundant about farmyards; except when they are skimming over ponds, they are almost always scouring the air above buildings or fields, at higher elevations than the Barn Swallows. ”

“ If unmolested, barn swallows will form quite a colony in the space of a few years. But, if their nests are injured or torn down, or their young ones are stolen away or disturbed, the birds forsake the locality forever. Where a number of families live together, their chattering, when, as the evening comes on, they are catching gnats and flies for supper, or feeding their young ones, is very pleasant and diverting. ”

“ His writings are marked by ease and freshness, The following extract is from "Swallow Barn," a series of sketches of early Virginia. ###
From the house at Swallow Barn there is to be seen, at no great distance, a clump of trees, and in the midst of these a humble building is discernible, that seems to court the shade in which it is modestly embowered. It is an old structure built of logs. Its figure is a cube, with a roof rising from all sides to a point, and surmounted by a wooden weathercock, which somewhat resembles a fish and somewhat a fowl. ”

“ They prefer unpainted buildings and the modern barn rarely knows them. The white, brown-spotted eggs are laid in the latter half of May. [83]
BARN SWALLOW
Hirundo erythrogaster. Case 5, Fig. 32
Chestnut underparts and a forked tail are the chief characters of this beautiful Swallow. L. 7.
Range. Nests from North Carolina and Arkansas to Canada; winters in the tropics.
Washington, common S.R., more abundant T.V., Mch. 30-Sept. 17. Ossining, common S.R., Apl. 15-Sept. 22. Cambridge, common S.R., but fast decreasing, Apl. 20-Sept. 10. N. Ohio, abundant S.R., Mch. 30-Sept. 22. ”

“ These nests are built of mud gathered by the birds from wet places on the ground, and carried in their mouths to the sites chosen by them. Many of our farmers have an unkind feeling for the barn swallows, as they think the mud-daubed nests on the new red paint are not an artistic addition; but if our cattle could give an intelligent opinion they would welcome the birds, for all swallows are entirely insectivorous, and they must eat many flies and mosquitoes that otherwise would be left to torment our animals. ”

“ Swallows more than any other birds like to make use of our buildings for their own homes. Barn swallows take the beams inside the barns, Eave Swallows settle under the eaves outside, and Purple Martins, the largest of the family, choose bird-houses which we put up for them. ”

“ The linnets' nest was beautifully made of soft grasses and hair and other fibrous materials, and the first thing which the swallows did was to plaster that across the top solidly with mud, so as to make a foundation on which they could work. The barn-swallows always construct their nests of mud, mixing with it a small number of pieces of straw or grass. They heap up the mud until often the nest weighs as much as two pounds, and then the hollow top is beautifully lined with soft materials, grasses, feathers, etc., on which the eggs are laid. ”