Tree swallow

“ Usually seen winging low over water, the Tree Swallow serves to clean the air of water-loving insects. These swallows appear on the Neck in great numbers during the fall, when the scarcity of insects changes their diet to Bayberries. Tree Swallows are among the last birds to migrate in the fall and always the first to return the following spring. Their nests are occasionally discovered in a hollow tree during May or June, but these little birds will readily accept a bird house in lieu of a hollow tree. ”

“ It glances from the prominent branches of one tree to those of another, as swift as a swallow, and turns its head about instantly to the glade, or path, and will not suffer any person to approach within a striking distance of it, but darts away on the least motion of the body. ”

“ First of the swallow host to speed northward is the Tree Swallow, that migrates in April, as soon as a sufficient number of insects have hatched to furnish a living for these almost wholly insectivorous birds. Their cheerful twitter and beautiful circling flight make them very welcome.
Swallows have always been regarded with favor. ”

“ When nesting about inhabited buildings he cannot well afford to dispense with the vigilance of his human landlords. Small, quiet, and peace-loving, he is a particularly poor match for the pugnacious sparrow. Specifications for the Tree Swallow house are given in Table I. See also Plate III. The inner wall, between floor and entrance, must be rough or provided with cleats, in order to give the young a sure foothold. Several pairs of Tree Swallows will willingly nest near one another. ”

“ L. R. Reynolds reported seeing it in numbers on the Skagit marshes near Fir, on the 1st of February; and Dr. Clinton T. Cooke, looking from his office window in the Alaska Building, saw a large specimen, apparently an adult male, soaring about over the Grand Opera House, in Seattle, on the 21st day of January.
The Tree Swallow is a lover of the water and is seldom to be found at a great distance from it. It is close to the surface of ponds and lakes that the earliest insects are to be found in spring, and it is here that the bird may maintain the spotlessness of its plumage by frequent dips. ”

“ The chimneys were three stories high, and the swallows built near the top, I suppose. They had the sky and the stars for a ceiling [Pg 169] to their dark little bedrooms. In spring there was never more than a blaze of sticks on the hearth—not that, unless we had visitors to stay. Sometimes a young swallow trying to fly fell out of the nest and fluttered across the hearth into the room. That was very exciting to us children. But at house-cleaning time a great bag of straw was stuffed up the chimney’s throat to save the hearth from falling soot and dried mud and the litter from the nests. ”

“ Man appears in a new land, clears its face of timber, and erects his home. By and by the swift forsakes the hollow tree to build in the settler's chimney, and the swallow leaves the overhanging tree trunk or rocky ledge for the shelter of the eaves and barn. ”

“ He frequently flies high over the large rivers and lakes, sailing and dashing about in pursuit of insects. Again, gliding down towards the water, he drinks in the manner of various species of Swallow. When the weather is very warm, he plunges repeatedly into the water, alights after each plunge on the low branch of a tree close by, shakes off the water and plumes himself, when, perceiving some individuals of his tribe passing high over head, he ascends to overtake them, and bidding adieu to the country, proceeds towards a warmer region. ”

“ Seen against the blue sky the veins and arteries of each leaf are clear-cut and distinct; no degeneration in the beech tree. During the autumn the numerous summer [176] tenants of the wood have quitted. There is silence in the cold air. Old and twisted, the beech trees have yielded generations of leaves uncurling from torch-like windings when first the swallows come across the sea; the rooks built in their massy summer greeneries; woodpeckers hewn a nesting place in the rotten boles, spreading a whiteness of chips on the moss beneath ”

“ Indeed, it spends much of its time in the orchard, drilling holes into the freshest, most vigorous trees; then, when their sap begins to flow, it siphons it into an insatiable throat, stopping in its orgie only long enough to snap at the insects that have been attracted to the wounded tree by the streams of its heart-blood now trickling down its sides. Another favorite pastime is to strip the bark off a tree, then peck at the soft wood underneath—almost as fatal a habit. ”

“ Soon the moss grows deeper underfoot, with a coolness that speaks of perpetual moisture. The forest becomes dense, almost bewildering; here a “black growth” of spruce or fir, there a tangle of moosewood, yonder a swale [241] where impenetrable alder-thickets make it impossible to hold a straight course. Because all this growth is useless to the lumberman, there is no cutting to be seen; but because I have passed this way before, instinctively following the same course like an animal, a faint winding trail begins to appear, with a bent twig or a blazed tree at every turn to give direction. ”

“ Avenues, and long walks under hedges, and pasture-fields, and mown meadows where cattle graze, are her delight, especially if there are trees interspersed; because in such spots insects most abound. When a fly is taken a smart snap from her bill is heard, resembling the noise at the shutting of a watch- case; but the motion of the mandibles are too quick for the eye.
The swallow, probably the male bird, is the excubitor to house- martins, and other little birds, announcing the approach of birds of prey. ”

“ While living in the backwoods of Ohio, our correspondent often noticed the swallows toward evening circling around the top of a sycamore-tree, in the hollow of which they would soon disappear. To determine whether the birds remained within the tree during the winter, Mr. Abbott had the tree cut down some time after the beginning of the cold season. The swallows were found within, clinging to the shell of the tree, stiff, motionless, and to all appearance in a state of suspended animation. ”

“ The trees shoot up in vast columns, fifty, seventy-five, and a hundred feet in height; and below are clusters of evergreen gall-bushes, with their thick and glossy foliage, mingled in with swamp honeysuckles, grape-vines, twining brier, and laurels, and other shrubs, forming an impenetrable thicket. The creeping plants sometimes climb seventy or eighty feet up the largest tree, and hang in heavy festoons from their branches. It would seem impossible that human feet could penetrate the wild, impervious jungle ”

“ Trees of the most varied description and of colossal dimensions flourish in the foreign garment of a borrowed adornment. Between each solitary giant of a forest tree, parasites and Lianæ spread their delicate green coils, while many a gigantic stem, enveloped in thousands of beautiful shoots, or dead trunk choked in the embrace of a parasitic creeper, attracts the eye as the train speeds past. So quick and so strong is the process of vegetation here, that every section of this line has twice in each year to be freed from the encroachments of the forest-children ”

“ You frequently see them glide rapidly near the ground, and then with a sidelong motion mount aloft, to dart downwards like an animated meteor, their plumage glowing in the light with metallic splendor, and the row of white spots on the tail contrasting beautifully with the darker plumage.”
The Swallow is considered a life-paired species, and returns to its nesting site of the previous season, building a new nest close to the old one. ”

“ The sudden and violent tempests which rage in that part of the world tear off the branches of trees and hurl them to the ground. During succeeding rainy seasons, the wet lodges in the broken branch, and by degrees rots away the wood, which is instantly filled with the larvæ of beetles, moths, flies, and other insects that feed upon decaying wood. Thus, in a few years, the hollow extends itself until it burrows into the tree itself, and sometimes descends nearly from the top to the bottom, thus forming an admirable locality for the bees. ”

“ In this way the yellow pine sometimes chokes out the cedar, and the fir gets the advantage of the sugar pine.
The bright, warm sun is the enemy of the tree that loves the shady hillsides. The swamp is the enemy of the tree that must have loose, dry soil. The cold is the enemy of the tree that is used to a hot climate. Is it not strange that what is good for one tree is an enemy of another?
Many kinds of trees have their own particular insect enemies which attack them and no others. Some of these insects live upon the leaves, others eat the sapwood under the bark, while a few attack the roots. ”

“ The idea that it is necessary to seek the wilderness or the thickest woods for nature is a total mistake; nature is at home, on the roof, close to every one. Eave-swallows, or house-martins (easily distinguished by the white bar across the tail) , build sometimes in the shelter of the porches of old houses. As you go in or out, the swallows visiting or leaving their nests fly so closely as almost to brush the face. Swallow means porch-bird, and for centuries and centuries their nests have been placed in the closest proximity to man. ”

“ Swallows and sparrows not only build their nests on my roof, but even enter my rooms without concern—one swallow has actually built its nest in the ceiling of the bathroom—and the weasel purloins fish under my very eyes without any scruples of conscience. ”

“ At no time of year is the weakness of roothold so liable to be fatal to a tree as now. During the winter a gale may snap a tree off at the trunk and smash it bodily to the ground. But if there is no weakness in the trunk there can be none in the roots, for the frost that is set about them holds even the shortest, as if embedded in stone. ”

“ As another proof that quick as they are on the wing, they do not always judge their position or course precisely, I know a case where a swallow, in less than ten yards after leaving her nest under the eaves of a house, flew with great force against a door in the garden wall painted a dull blue. ”

“ The process of feeding is carried on while both old and young are on the wing; or the young, perched on the top of a house or the branch of a tree, receive in turn the morsels which their more skilful parents have caught for them. In autumn, many days before migration is actually about to take place, Swallows, old and young, assemble in large flocks, especially towards evening, and roost on trees in the vicinity of water. ”

“ Maple fires are burnt out generally, and look smoky in the swamps. When my eyes were resting on those smoke-like bare trees, it did not at first occur to me why the landscape was not as brilliant as a few days ago. The outside trees in the swamps lose their leaves first.
I see a pretty large flock of tree sparrows, very lively and tame, pursuing each other and drifting along a bushy fence and ditch like driving snow. ”

“ To push a way through the ever-thickening bracken becomes more and more laborious; there is scarce a choice but to follow a winding narrow path, green with grass and moss and strewn with leaves, in and out and round the impenetrable thickets. Whither it leads—if, indeed anywhere—there is no sign. The precise sense of direction is quickly lost, and then glancing round and finding nothing but fern and bush and tree on every hand, it dawns upon the mind that this is really a forest—not a wood, where a few minutes either way will give you a glimpse of the outer light through the ash-poles. ”

“ Sometimes the air shook with the thunderous concussion of some great falling tree which, long since bled to death by parasitical plant growths, now at last toppled crashing back into the dank soil whence it had forced its way up into a place in the sun. ”

“ He seeks her in the woods, the swamps, on the hills, along the streams, by night and by day, in season and out of season. He skims the fields and hillsides as the swallow skims the air, and what he gets is intangible to most persons. ”

“ The sighing of the wind alone is heard among their sapless branches.
Thus much we know, that in all forest-trees the stages of vegetation are alike. But century after century must have rolled on, till the giant bulk of the noble trees were fully developed, till their stately columns, upheld an ample canopy of spreading boughs, beneath which the flocks that grazed in the open spaces of the forest might find a shelter from the storm. ”

“ The tree, thus encircled and suffocated by the baneful hold of the climbers, lacks light and breath; the sap flows in scarce quantities throughout its organism and it languishes under the shade of the close tendrils; swarms of insects increase its agony by making their food and their nests of its bark ”

“ A tree dies; and, erect or prone, it may survive for years as a gaunt, dry corpse. There is no jungle to hide it from the air; there are no creepers to bore into its bones and leave openings for the tearing fingers of the weather; there is only the short, crisp moss underfoot, and that rather helps than hinders its preservation. ”

“ Once in a while some fruit falls from the heavily-laden trees, and the first dead leaves rustle a little on the ground. The bees are busy, making the most of the bright day; for they know of the stormy weather coming. The sky is very blue, and the flowers very bright. Two swallows are playing hide-and-seek through the orchard, and chasing each other in great races, now so close to the ground that it seems as if their feet might catch in the green grass, and now away up in the air over the high walls out towards the hills ”