Taken near Chelan. Photo by the Author.
NESTING SITE OF THE BANK SWALLOW.
The life of a Swallow is so largely spent a-wing, that our interest in it centers even more than in the case of other birds upon the time when it is bound to earth by family ties. We are scarcely conscious of the presence of the Bank Swallow until one day we see a great company of them fluttering about a sand-bank which overlooks the river, all busily engaged in digging the tunnels which are to shelter their young for that season. These birds are regularly gregarious, and a nesting colony frequently numbers hundreds.
The birds usually select a spot well up within a foot or two of the top of a nearly perpendicular bank of soil or sand, and dig a straight, round tunnel three or four feet long. If, however, the soil contains stones, a greater length and many turns may be required to reach a safe spot for the slight enlargement where the nest proper is placed. The bird appears to loosen the earth with its closed beak, swaying from side to side the while; and, of course, fallen dirt or sand is carried out in the mouth. Sometimes the little miner finds a lens-shaped tunnel more convenient, and I have seen them as much as seven inches in width and only two in height. While the members of a colony, especially if it be a small one, usually occupy a straggling, horizontal line of holes, their burrows are not infrequently to be seen in loose tiers, so that the bank presents a honey-combed appearance.
Communal life seems a pleasant thing to these Swallows, and there is usually a considerable stir of activity about the quarters. A good deal of social twittering also attends the unending gyrations. The wonder is that the rapidly moving parts of this aerial kaleidoscope never collide, and that the cases of turning up at the wrong number are either so few or so amicably adjusted. The nesting season is, however, beset with dangers. Weasels and their ilk sometimes find entrance to the nesting burrows, and they are an easy prey to underbred small boys as well. The undermining of the nesting cliff by the swirling river sometimes precipitates an entire colony—at least its real and personal property—to destruction.
A certain populous bank near Chelan faced west, and whenever the west wind blew, the fine volcanic ash, which composed the cliff, was whirled into the mouths of the burrows, so rapidly, indeed, that the inmates required to be frequently at work in order to maintain an exit. A few dessicated carcasses, which I came across in old, filled-up burrows, I attributed to misfortune in this regard.
Bank Swallows are the least musical of the Swallow kind,—unless, perhaps, we except the Rough-winged species, which is naturally associated in mind with this. They have, nevertheless, a characteristic twitter, an unmelodious sound like the rubbing together of two pebbles. An odd effect is produced when the excited birds are describing remonstrant parabolas at an intruder’s head. The heightened pitch in the tones of the rapidly approaching bird, followed instantly by the lower tone of full retreat, is enough to startle a slumbering conscience in one who meditates mischief on a Swallow’s home.
No. 130.
AMERICAN BARN SWALLOW.
A. O. U. No. 613. Hirundo erythrogastra Bodd.
Synonyms.—American Barn Swallow. Fork-tailed Swallow.
Description.—Adult: Above lustrous steel-blue; in front an imperfect collar of the same hue; forehead chestnut; lores black; throat and breast rufous; the remaining underparts, including lining of wings, more or less tinged with the same, according to age and season; wings and tail blackish, with purplish or greenish reflections; tail deeply forked, the outer pair of feathers being from one to two inches longer, and the rest graduated; white blotches on inner webs (except on middle pair) follow the bifurcation. Immature: Forehead and throat paler; duller or brownish above; lateral tail-feathers not so long. Length about 7.00 (177.8); wing 4.75 (120.6); tail 3.00-4.50 (76.2-114.3); bill from nostril .24 (6.1).
Recognition Marks.—Aerial habit; rufous of throat and underparts; forked tail; nest usually inside the barn.
Nesting.—Nest: a neat bracket or half-bowl of mud, luxuriously lined with grass and feathers, and cemented to a beam of barn or bridge. In Washington still nests occasionally in original haunts, viz., cliffs, caves, and crannied sea-walls. Eggs: 3-6, of variable shape,—oval or elongated; white or pinkish white and spotted with cinnamon or umber. Av. size .76 × .55 (19.3 × 14). Season: last week in May and first week in July; two broods. Stehekin, Aug. 10, 1896, 4 eggs.
General Range.—North America at large. Perhaps the most widely and generally distributed of any American bird. Winters in Central and South America.
Range in Washington.—Summer resident of regular occurrence at lower levels thruout the State, less common west of the Cascades, more common elsewhere in the older settled valleys.
Migrations.—Spring: c. May 1st; Yakima County, April 27, 1907; May 3, 1908. Fall: c. September 10th; Seattle, September 20, 1907.
Authorities.—Hirundo horeorum Benton, Cooper and Suckley, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. XII., pt. II., 1860, p. 184. T. C&S. L. Rh. D¹. Kb. Ra. D². Ss¹. Ss². J. B. E.
Specimens.—Prov. P¹. C. E.
One hardly knows what quality to admire most in this boyhood’s and life-long friend, the Barn Swallow. All the dear associations of life at the old farm come thronging up at sight of him. You think of him somehow as a part of the sacred past; yet here he is today as young and as fresh as ever, bubbling over with springtime laughter, ready for a frolic over the bee-haunted meadows, or willing to settle down on the nearest fence-wire and recount to you with sparkling eyes and eloquent gesture the adventures of that glorious trip up from Mexico.