Barn Swallow Confidential

Who is that dashing little bandit darting out from under the little trestle bridge over the stream? It must be the Barn Swallow, Hirundo rustico. This lad is never put out by people, in fact he nests almost exclusively on man-made structures.

With his handsome red-orange head and deeply cut swallowtail, this debonair gentleman really stands out in a fast-moving field. Even though his life is a constant blur as he chases down the insect pests that make up his exclusive diet, he can be easily differentiated from his cousins by that steeply-cut tail, the very definition of swallowtail, his brightly-colored head, black mask, and in the case of a mature specimen, a bright orange breast.

This is the most common of the swallows found in the New York Metro area, but he ranges widely throughout the entire United States and is also resident to northern Europe, north central Asia, northern Africa, the Middle East, southern China, and Japan. They winter in South America, South Asia, Indonesia, and Micronesia. During our warmer months he can be found in fields chasing horseflies, building little mud nests under bridges, hanging out in barns, sheds and coops or happily hanging out with the baseball players at Long Island's Jones Beach.

Although he forms socially monogamous pairs, the lady swallow is not adverse to a quickie with an unattached male who hangs out nearby during a breeding season. These unpaired males help with nest defense and also with a little extracurricular lovin', making the female swallowtail a polygynous species.

Don't think that the ladies are indiscriminate. They can be very picky. Scientific studies have proven that they selectively seek out the most symmetrically shaped males since body symmetry is reliably correlated with health and longevity in these birds.

Further proof that the barn swallow is a crafty devil is his creative partnership with Ospreys. He likes to build his nests under the big, stick-filled platforms of these fierce fish eating predators. In return for the body-guard services provided by the Osprey, the swallow serves as living burglar alarm and alerts the Osprey of nearby trouble through their high-pitched alarm calls.

"Sleep" is the call of the swallow, but they don't do much sleeping. During the day-light hours they are constantly on the move. Swallow chicks may be fed as many as 400 times in a day. Adults take their insect prey from the air and even drink while skimming the surface of the water.

It's no wonder they are always on the go when one considers how many animals would like to swallow a swallow. Natural enemies include: hawks, owls, gulls, grackles, rats, squirrels, bobcats, domestic cats, bobcats, raccoons, snakes, bullfrogs and fish. In a sign that turn-about is fair play, fire ants are known to attack and eat this bird, perhaps in retribution for all the flies, moths, mosquitoes and other insects that it consumes. And, as always, man gets in the act too.

Although we conveniently provide this bird with his lodging by building the barns, bridges, sheds and houses that this 15 to 20 centimeter long pipsqueak requires, sometimes we are not enamored of this tenant. The nests can be unsightly and their fecal matter sometimes causes illness in farm animals. For this reason, farmers may wage war on them.

On the positive side, the barn swallow is a major predator of many truly noxious insects whose presence is at least as likely to cause disease as the birds. The barn swallow, insect-eater that he is, is also an important indicator species since his carnivorous diet may alert to the presence of toxins in the environment. When his chipper "Sleep, Sleep" is silenced and his dapper presence is no longer noted, we may be in big trouble.

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Sources:
animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Hirundo_rustica.html
All the Birds of North America, American Bird Conservancy's Field Guide