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. They were formerly considered a good omen, and were thought to bring fair weather and prosperity. I shall always remember the welcoming swallow that met our ship near the Scilly Islands one June day, and preceded us without resting for long hours as we voyaged close to the shore of England. It seemed to presage the good fortune that followed us.
Swallows fly with their broad beaks ready to open, and catch unwary insects with great ease. They rise early and continue their ceaseless quest for small beetles, flies, mosquitoes, and other insects. Professor Beal says: “Most of these are either injurious or annoying, and the numbers destroyed by swallows are not only beyond calculation but almost beyond imagination.”[92] He pleads for the protection of all swallows and suggests that the “white-bellied swallows” be supplied with boxes similar to those constructed for bluebirds, only placed at a greater elevation and protected from cats.
Tree swallows are the first to come and first to go. Before the summer has really arrived, as early as July first, they begin to flock and form great colonies that may be seen migrating during the daytime.
THE BARN SWALLOW
Swallow Family—Hirundinidæ
Length: About 7 inches; an inch longer than the tree swallow because of longer tail; body nearly the same size.
General Appearance: Upper parts a glossy bluish-black; under parts reddish-brown and buff; tail deeply forked.
Male: Forehead and throat bright reddish-brown; breast, belly, and feathers under wings a light brown, becoming buffy; breast and throat separated by an indistinct dark band; upper parts a shimmering bluish-black; tail very deeply forked—the proverbial “swallow-tail”; rounded white spots on the inner web of all except the middle tail-feathers.
Female: Resembles male, though paler in color; outer tail-feathers a little shorter.
Young: Backs duller, breasts paler, tail-feathers shorter than those of adult male.
Notes: A clear, sweet call, and a joyous, musical twitter—weet-weet, or twit-twit.
Flight: Long, sweeping curves that are beautiful to see. The bird shows first his blue back, then his soft brown breast. He flies nearer the ground than other swallows, and surpasses them all in his power of flight. Imagine the number of miles he travels in a day!
Habitat: Fields and farm-lands; also the vicinity of ponds or other breeding-places of insects. The nest of mud is usually fastened to a rafter of a barn. These swallows often nest in colonies.
Range: North America, from northwestern Alaska and Canada, to southern California and southwestern Texas, northern Arkansas and North Carolina. They do not breed in the southeastern part of the United States. They winter in South America.
BARN SWALLOW
Most beautiful of all the swallows is this bluebird fleet of the summer time. It is associated in my mind with shining pools rimmed with iris; with fragrant lilac-bushes, blossoming apple-trees, and waving fields of grain near farm-buildings. Its sweet voice and marvelous flight bring poetry into the prosaic life of the farm.
Burroughs characterizes the swallow delightfully in “Under the Maples.” He says: “Is not the swallow one of the oldest and dearest of birds? Known to the poets and sages and prophets of all peoples! So infantile, so helpless and awkward upon the earth, so graceful and masterful on the wing, the child and darling of the summer air, reaping its invisible harvest in the fields of space as if it dined on sunbeams, touching no earthly food, drinking and bathing and mating on the wing, swiftly, tirelessly coursing the long day through, a thought on wings, a lyric in the shape of a bird! Only in the free fields of the summer air could it have got that steel-blue of the wings and that warm tan of the breast. Of course I refer to the barn swallow. The cliff swallow seems less a child of the sky and sun, probably because its sheen and glow are less, and its shape and motions less arrowy. More varied in color, its hues yet lack the intensity, and its flight the swiftness, of those of its brother of the hay-lofts. The tree swallows and the bank swallows are pleasing, but they are much more local and restricted in their ranges than the barn-frequenters. As a farm boy I did not know them at all, but the barn swallows the summer always brought. After all, there is but one swallow; the others are particular kinds that we specify.”[93]