Kay’s Birding Blog

On this beautiful Sunday morning at the end of June, our last Tree Swallow family is on the edge of fledging.  Parents are fluttering around the box, coaxing their four reluctant offspring to make that first flight.

It’s no wonder the tiny nestlings are timid.  When orioles or grosbeak youngsters leave the nest, they do little flying – instead they hop from branch to branch begging for food from mom and pop.  But swallows live on the wing.  That first flight is a long one for the feathered newbies as they leave their enclosed nursery and take right to the air.

Although fledgling swallows will land to rest on a powerline, a branch or the top of a nest box, once these birds are out of the nest, they become what they were born to be – aerial acrobats.  And they do it relatively quickly.

They arrive on Charter Sanctuary by early April and for the next three months, these delightful birds fill our fields with their joyous chatter.  But once they have finished their nesting cycle, they are off to join great flocks that gather over huge wetlands.  They won’t leave for South America until late summer or early fall, with a few individuals lingering in southern states until November.

Each year, we have between 20 and 25 pairs of nesting Tree Swallows.  Their arrival is always a time to celebrate.  But their leaving is bittersweet, signaling, as it does, the beginning of the departure of our Neotropical species.  The only comfort is the knowledge that they will be back again next year.