They Called the Swallow Hirundo

W ho are "they" anyway? I'll let you wonder about that as we talk about this week's bird. I'll give you a clue though. It has nothing to do with the musical "Paint Your Wagon!"

On Nantucket we can expect to see six species of swallows during the year and this is the second most common, behind the Tree Swallow. This bird is the Barn Swallow, the most widespread swallow in the world, found on every continent except Antarctica. It's estimated the world population of Barn Swallows is at least 190 million.

When you think "swallow" you probably have an image of long swallow-tail feathers, and this is the one swallow that has them. The other five species we see here don't really have what you would call a swallow tail.

Barn Swallows are about seven inches long but two of those inches are tail feathers. They are blue-black on the back and orange on the throat to a paler color underneath. Normally you see them in their rapid and graceful flight, but occasionally perched on a phone wire. That's when you get to appreciate their bright colors.

Swallows are human favorites because their diet is over 99 percent insects. The more swallows there are around, the less you will get bitten. All these insects are caught on the wing so we get to enjoy the birds' aerial acrobatics. They even drink while airborne, skimming low along the surface of a pond to grab a sip of water.

We start seeing Barn Swallows here in mid-April. Right now they are involved with nest building. These are avian masons. They build their cup-like nests using little balls of mud that they scrape up around wet areas and then mix with bits of straw, feathers or horsehair. All this is stuck under the eaves of buildings. I remember one summer when my mother kept the garage door open 24 hours a day because the Barn Swallows were nesting inside.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Swallow work together to build a nest. One observer noted they worked eight days straight, up to 14 hours a day, in order to complete one from scratch. Four or five eggs are laid and then incubated over two weeks. Again, both parents share this duty. Then the young live in the nest for 18 days, being fed prodigious amounts of insect matter by both parents.

After that they spend a few days around home before heading out on their own. At our latitude it is possible for Barn Swallows to raise two broods. A very old Barn Swallow may live past eight years, quite amazing considering the long distances they travel every year.

Their migration is not insignificant. Virtually all of them travel to South America every winter, but migration is just a small part of their flight plan. They are airborne 90 percent of daylight hours. It is estimated that each Barn Swallow flies 200,000 miles every year. All right, maybe only 180,000, but these little guys don't carry odometers. With that much air time a lot can go wrong, so raising eight to ten young a year is necessary in order to balance the risk.

There are a couple of Nantucket ties to Barn Swallows. One is their mutual relationship with another Nantucket favorite - the Osprey. Barn Swallows will sometimes build their nests below an Osprey nest. Since Ospreys eat fish, they are no threat to Barn Swallows but they do drive off other birds of prey. The swallows' alarm calls alert the Ospreys to the presence of other birds of prey that might harm their young.

The other item is the tradition amongst nautical men that a swallow is a symbol of a safe return. A tattoo of a single swallow indicates 5,000 nautical miles of travel and then a second for the next 5,000.

And now - who are "they?" We're thinking of the Romans, specifically Pliny the Elder. He lived in the 1st Century A.D. and wrote one of the first books on natural history that mentioned Hirundo the swallow. He is also known for a quotation all writers should live by. "True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read."

So, in the quest for glory I have pursued the swallow, in this case the Barn Swallow, known to scientists as Hirundo rustica. Linnaeus gave it this name referring to its more rural distribution compared with the House Martin, Hirundo urbica, a Eurasian bird that likes more urban settings.

And last, you may think of a saying we paraphrase as "one swallow doesn't make a summer." That goes back to Aristotle, some 400 years earlier than Pliny. The actual quote - "For as one swallow or one day does not make a spring, so one day or a short time does not make a fortunate or happy man." I

George C. West creates illustrations for these articles.

Find more about Birding Nantucket on the web at http://k-blackshaw.com/BN/BN.htm