Hi all, Barn Swallows are fascinating creatures. Recently, I was on dirt road, in a rural area of Grand Forks ND, cruising slowly to look for grassland birds. And I parked at one wet location to record some birds. All of sudden I found four or five Barn Swallows flying around the car and some would pause flying in front of my open passenger window. Initially, I thought they were looking in the rear view mirror, but they often looked at me through the window facing me. I felt this behavior odd. And a few minutes later one came inside my car and sat of my dashboard on the passenger side of the window. I was so transfixed and awed at the creature and its beady eyes watching me. It sat there for a few seconds. I did not understand what they really wanted. I have a video showing the birds flying around my car and one landing on the side of my car near door handle and a photograph of one looking inside my car watching me. I can't post those here.
It was a cold morning with temperatures hovering just around 40 F. And my car was hot as I was using heater inside my car and also sun was up and heating the metal body of the car. One more thing happened in these areas was when I drove through wet areas was hoards of gnats would fly around my car and sometimes it looked like a thick cloud. On several occasions I have run back into the car and shut the windows. So I deduced that behavior of swallows was to get warmth and these insects. May be they were telling me to move so I can disturb the insects! Later, at other locations when I was driving on a cold morning with temps in low 40s, I would see Barn Swallows following my car back and forth and catching insects that my car disturbed. They would come up close to my car and fly away at the last moment before hitting the car. There were other swallows like Tree and Cliff but they did not do this, they remained far away from the car. On these occasions I purposely drove very slowly for the benefit of Barn swallows. I also remember several years ago, in Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, along the main drive as I was driving the swallows were following my car on a cold day. Initially I was thinking that I am going to hit them, but realized that they are smarter creatures and knew when to move away from the car. So I think Barn Swallows have learnt this behavior to follow cars to find insects along the car. I would love to hear if anybody else has observed this behavior for Barn Swallows. That cute little creature in my car staring at me made my day for me! Later that day I also found Bank Swallows, Cliff Swallows and Tree Swallows in hundreds. So I call it a Swallow day of my trip! Cheers Meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 42.429007,-76.47111 http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ Dragonfly book sample pages: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1ngrZelDNo5QnFDMl9BdVNlLXc Road Trip to Africa Book Preview https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KsoxFFcMNSck8y_qpxNHqefq4iL-VSSS/view?usp=sharing Subject: Re: Barn Swallow question From: anneboby <anneb...@aol.com> Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2021 15:41:46 +0000 (UTC) X-Message-Number: 6 Further to Bob Paxton's comment about Tree Swallows' love affair with feather lining of their nests, I have found these birds very resourceful with their feather gathering depending on the nature of their local habitat. For years I have monitored nest boxes in Upstate counties of Schenectady, Saratoga, Schoharie and Montgomery. Depending on location, these swallows gather feathers of a wide range of species, as well as in varying quantity. Rural areas are more endowed with local fowl than are suburban areas leading to easier gathering. For instance the nest boxes at the Landis Arboretum in rural Schoharie Co. with roosters crowing in the distance had much larger gatherings of goose, duck and chicken feathers in general than did the boxes at West Hill, a suburban residential area in the Town of Rotterdam in Sch'dy Co where Great Horned Owl feathers made an almost annual appearance. In some areas the tan body feathers of barnyard geese are very popular, but so can be white feathers from domestic ducks. Less numerous are flank feathers from male Mallard, Wood Duck and body feathers of Wild Turkey. Some of the rarer choices are from Great Blue Heron, Great Horned Owl (body), No. Saw-whet Owl (primaries) and the strangest of all: Common Nighthawk. One nest in Montgomery Co contained 5-6 nighthawk feathers including flight feathers (rectrix and wing) suggesting that this swallow had found a dead nighthawk and was harvesting feathers from it. Nighthawks molt away from the northeastern U.S. spring nesting season. Feathers, flight and body, from local passerines also show up in these nests on rare occasion. But far and away, body feathers of barnyard fowl are the most common Tree Swallow nest lining material in these counties. Bob YunickSchenectady --- END OF DIGEST -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
