Archive for July 14th, 2006
wolfhollowwildlife.org
Skagit Valley Herald,
By Teresa Goffredo
MOUNT VERNON - Witnesses expressed outrage Friday after watching county housing authority workers scraping swallows’ nests off a five-story downtown apartment building, killing between 20 and 60 hatchlings who were too young to fly and fell to their deaths.
“Baby birds were falling and splatting all over the cars and sidewalk and the road. It was a pretty grim scene,” said witness Gale Sterrett, development coordinator for the habitat protection group Skagit Land Trust. “At one point I had to close my window shade. It was very upsetting.” John Smith, executive director of the Housing Authority of Skagit County, submitted a letter this week to the Skagit Valley Herald addressing the issue. In the letter, Smith said his agency removed the swallow’s nests in response to complaints about health and safety because of the large amounts of bird droppings accumulating on Myrtle Street outside the President apartments. The housing authority owns President Apartments, 310 Myrtle St. But Smith also wrote that “had the situation been considered more fully the action would not have taken place.”
One legal point housing authority officials didn’t consider was that destroying the 30 or so swallows’ nests at the apartment building was a violation - a misdemeanor - of the federal Migratory Bird Act.
But State Fish and Wildlife officials say it’s common for people to unknowingly violate that law, and it’s unlikely that any prosecution will occur. “It’s one of the easiest laws to inadvertently violate,” said Russell Link, a state urban wildlife biologist in Mill Creek. “A person may not know they violated the act but people should know that.”
Swallows - small, swooping birds with pointed wings - should be held in high regard as one of the region’s leading insect-eating birds, with their favorite food being mosquitoes, Link said Link also noted that swallows may nest near humans for protection because the birds somehow think people keep away predators like crows. But the swallows living underneath the cornice of the President apartments might have felt far from protected Wednesday.
Housing authority maintenance employees working from inside the building’s fifth-floor apartments leaned out of apartment windows and used a long-handled device with a blade at the end to scrape the swallows’ artfully crafted mud nests off the building’s cornice onto the street below. After removing the nests, the workers used high-pressure hoses to wash away the bird droppings from the street.
“It was a terrible sight and such a shock,” said witness Martha Bray, executive director of the Skagit Land Trust. The land trust has offices across the street from where the swallows had nested.
The Skagit Land Trust “is trying to save natural habitat and we see a little bit of it across the street being destroyed,” Bray said Friday. “It’s pretty sad and ironic.”
Bray and others aware of the swallows’ demise all asked the same question when they discussed the incident: Why didn’t the housing authority just wait a few weeks until the baby birds were old enough to fly away?
“It was uncalled for, very uncalled for,” said David Peveto, who lives above Hugo Helmer Music Inc. on First Street. Peveto tried to save two of the stranded swallows who had fallen into the street by putting them in a box and placing a towel over the box. But Peveto was told to leave the box on the street, and overnight a hungry cat got the baby swallows.
Peveto didn’t know he could bring the hatchlings to Wolf Hollow Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, a wildlife rescue agency based on San Juan Island, but which also serves Skagit County.
One of the baby swallows ultimately made it to the home of Roremary Orr, a representative of Wolf Hollow based in Anacortes. “My concern is had (the housing authority) waited three weeks, they could have destroyed empty nests,” Orr said.
Another swallow survivor made it into the hands of Karen Hall-Flickner, office manager for Peters and Cain accounting, which is located on the first floor of the President Apartments building. Hall-Flickner said she saw the baby bird in the street Wednesday. Since then, she has put the bird in a cage in her office and has been feeding it with a syringe.
Before the swallows’ nests were removed Wednesday, Hall-Flickner said she had made several calls to try to get the bird droppings cleaned from the sidewalk in front of her office. One call she made was to the Mount Vernon Street Department. Street department officials told her, however, that the street was not part of their jurisdiction because the building was owned by the housing authority.
Hall-Flickner then called the housing authority. But she said she wasn’t complaining about the nests. She just wanted someone to come and wash the sidewalk twice a week. She said she certainly didn’t want the swallows’ nests destroyed.
“Obviously the ultimate solution was for the nests to be removed but either: A when they were first noticed before the babies were hatched or B, wait another week or two for the babies to leave the nest,” Hall-Flickner said. Street department officials told Hall they had recommended to the housing authority that the nests be removed in September, after the baby birds had flown away.
So, street department officials were quite surprised the housing authority had already scraped the nests away, Hall said. In his letter to the community, housing authority Director Smith was contrite. “In retrospect, we aught to have waited a few weeks until the birds being raised had left the nests, but complaints about health and safety prompted action,” Smith wrote.
“These birds are likely to attempt to nest in the same place next season,” he wrote. In the future, one would hope that with shared responsibility, cooperation and goodwill that birds will be preserved and health and safety will also be maintained.”
But for some downtown residents and workers, the excuse about health and safety didn’t fly.
“So the sidewalk’s a little messy,” said Peveto. “I was raised on a farm and I’ve learned to step around that stuff.”
Though most of the swallows’ nests were scraped off the Myrtle Street side of the apartment building, about 50 nests remain in front of the building on First Street. Those nests weren’t removed because the awning in front of the building prevents the bird droppings from reaching the street. Smith said there were no plans to remove these nests this summer. Still, Skagit Land Trust Director Bray wonders why humans can’t be better at accommodating wildlife.
“We need to learn to live with wildlife. It’s so wonderful to have these birds in the city. They’re native species and managing to get by in the city,” Bray said. “I really enjoyed seeing them every morning.”
(Note - in fact 4 nestling Cliff Swallows were sent to Wolf Hollow as a result of this event. They were raised along with a number of other young swallows and have now been released back into the wild.
We hope that people will learn a couple of things from this disturbing event - a) It is against federal law to destroy the nests of native bird species, both when there are eggs in the nest and when the young have hatched. b) there is rarely any need to knock down nests just because droppings are landing on sidewalks, decks etc. A simple awning or board, attached to the wall just a few feet below the nest will catch the droppings. This can then be taken down and cleaned once a year in fall, and replaced ready for the next nesting season.)
July 14th, 2006
alaskaoutdoorjournal.com
Swallows are an enjoyable species of wildlife to have around the yard. In addition to their entertaining acrobatics they are wonderful bug eaters, especially for mosquitos here in Alaska. The Violet Green swallow and tree swallow migrate to southcentral Alaska around May 1st. In the wild they chose to nest in abandoned woodpecker nest sites but these are relatively rare and so the birds will take up residence in anything that meets their requirements.
Manmade nest boxes are easy to construct and install. The following instructions, illustrations and guidelines will guide you through the process. Its a great project for the whole family to participate in.
Construction
Materials: Sides, back and bottom panels 1 x 6″ finished boards. Top: 1 x 8″ finished board or 1/2″ plywood.
Place a 1/4″ hole in the back, near the top, for hanging the nest box on a nail. If the nest box is to be placed on the side of a building, extend the back panel board an additional 2″ in length for easy mounting.
The box can also be placed on a 4″ diameter post, ten or more feet tall, attached to the bottom of the box and a 12″ metal sleeve should cover the post just below the nest box to discourage predators. If painted it will not be unsightly. When a post is used, add one inch overhang to the back of the nest box top.
Guidelines
1 Preferred nest sites have south, east or western exposures.
2 Violet Green and tree swallows do not like close neighbors. Place boxes away from each other, at least forty or fifty feet, and making the entrances face different directions is helpful. Apartment swallow houses are cruel, and cause the death of many birds, due to constant territorial fighting. These birds are not martins and lack the gregarious instincts of martins.
3 Swallows like open country or open, mixed woods. In tree-less areas, Violet Green swallows nest in small crevices in rock cliffs.
4 Place nest boxes well out of reach of cats and squirrels. Never place nest boxes on spruce trees or squirrels will move into them.
5 Swallows prefer nest sites with front over-hang either under the eaves of buildings or built onto the nest box by extending the roof. See illustration.
6 No perch is really necessary, and the typical peg type perch is unacceptable because it damages tail feathers. Use a cross perch made from a small tree limb.
7 The normal nest site for tree swallows and most lowland Violet Green swallows are the abandoned nest cavities of woodpeckers. Homemade nest boxes should resemble these. Care should be taken not to make the inside dimensions too large, bigger isn’t better, follow the sizes in the illustrations, these have proven to be the best for hundreds of years.
8 No nest material should be placed in the boxes, nest building is a vital part of swallow courtship. Paint the box any color you wish, the birds will be unaffected by it.
9 NEVER put wire or other fabric inside of boxes for the young to climb up. This causes the young birds to crowd the entrance and forces them out of the nest before they can fly, making them easy prey for predators. Don’t worry, they will get out when the time is right.
Never drill air holes in the bottom of any nest box. It invites ants which move into the nesting material and will kill the young. Woodpeckers don’t make holes in the bottom of their nest cavities and they should not be there for swallows either. Don’t worry about air circulation, and if the roof is water tight the nest cavity will stay dry.
Clean out the old nesting material about once every two years. If you attach the top with hinges this is an easy chore.
Don’t make metal nesting sites such as pipes; they get too hot and too cold.
DON’T OPEN THE NEST BOX TO SEE THE BABIES! Install boxes by May 1.
July 14th, 2006
“by Lisa Myers
letsgobirding.com
Developing open space often negatively impacts wildlife,
but for the Cliff Swallow this was not the case! Because
of their preference for building nests on vertical surfaces
like cliffs, this swallow has benefited by suburbia, as it now
utilizes man-made structures like bridges and buildings.
In fact, there are more Cliff Swallows today than when the
pioneers settled the west.
Cliff Swallows are usually found near water as they use
mud to build their nests. They take this mud in their mouth
to their nest location. It is here that they build a tubular shaped
nest and fill it with feathers and grass. Often the swallows will
build their nests in large colonies. One colony consisted of
over 3,700 nests!
Both parents help incubate the 4 – 6 eggs. After only two weeks the eggs hatch. If you find a nest colony you can easily watch the parents entering and leaving the nests. Chicks can also be seen at the opening of the nests as they impatiently wait for their next meal. With nests so close together it is believed that parent birds recognize their chicks by voice. After three weeks the chicks leave the nest and soon learn to catch bugs for themselves.
As the name implies, swallows gather their food by swallowing-up bugs and insects. They do this food gathering on the wing as Cliff Swallows have strong jaws and are able to snatch food right out of the air and lock it in their mouth.
Because a large part of their diet consists of insects, swallows follow the warm temperatures throughout the year. Let’s face it, they need to live where the bugs are! During the spring and summer months Cliff Swallows can be found throughout much of North America . In the fall these birds migrate to South America where they’ll spend the winter, but they’ll be back! It only takes them a few days to make the journey. Some folks believe Cliff Swallows are so precise that they return on the same date each spring. In San Juan Capistrano, CA. they believe the swallows return to nest at the Mission on the 19 th of March every year. That belief is not quite true as the swallows react to a food source and migrate accordingly. In Medieval times they believed swallows hibernated in the mud and flew back out each spring.
The truth of the matter is that Cliff Swallows are a migratory bird species thus protecting it and its nesting activities from hunting and destruction. If a person is caught removing a nest they can be arrested. If there is some need to remove Cliff Swallows from an area, special permits must be issued. If Cliff Swallows do like an area that you prefer they not colonize it is recommended that you construct barriers during the winter before the birds return.
There are 90 different species of swallows in the world and we can find 9 different species in North America . In the San Francisco Bay Area we are fortunate to be able to find up to 5 different species of swallows during a spring/summer bird walk! All are quick flying, beautiful birds around 5 inches long. The Cliff Swallow has a white brow which helps to distingbuish it from our other swallows. Many times they are flying high above us as we go about our day. Who needs pesticides when you have these little buddies in your neighborhood - they are nature’s organic bug zapper!
Both Cliff Swallow pictures were provided by Tom Grey. The Cliff Swallow pictured above is gathering mud for its nest.
July 14th, 2006
hrh.servsite.com
San Juan Capistrano was known as the “Jewel of the Missions,” and was founded November 1, 1776, by Father Junipero Serra. It was a pretentious establishment with many workshops, loom rooms, tallow vats, etc. It had the most important and pretentious stone church of the whole chain of Missions founded by Serra. In 1819, there were over 31,000 animals, cattle, sheep, horses, mules, goats and pigs on the livestock rolls, owned by the Mission, and in 1812, the year of the disastrous earthquake, there were 1361 Indian “neophytes” under the care of the padres. (It is widely known in California that the natives were treated like slaves, and were actually locked indoors at night).
Songwriter Leon Rene was listening to the radio one morning when he heard the announcer say the swallows were about to arrive at the Mission San Juan Capistrano, and an idea for a song was born. Rene is the author of “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano,” which was introduced in 1939, and was soon a hit.
According to tradition, the swallows return to Capistrano on March 19th, St. Joseph’s Day. They come from the Holy Land, says the legend, carrying a twig in their beaks, which they drop on the ocean when they want to rest during their journey. As romantic as the legend sounds, it isn’t true; ornithologists have tracked the birds to Argentina where they spend the winter, returning in the spring to raise their young.
The Capistrano birds are cliff swallows, which have probably been returning to the area for centuries. They transferred their nests to the eaves of the Mission when it was built as a result of its convenient location near two rivers, which they needed for mud. Swallows build their nests out of tiny granules of mud piled on top of one another, to form an inverted pouch with a funnel-like opening. They return to the same nests each year and if the nests haven’t survived the winter, they often rebuild in the same place.
As San Juan Capistrano has grown, the swallows have found more eaves to nest under, yet their food supply has dwindled. Insects necessary to their survival thrive in open fields, particularly those near riverbeds. The reduction in numbers of the insects (as a result of the development of the area), has caused the swallows to locate further from the center of town, which explains why visitors no longer see clouds of swallows descending on the Mission, as they once did.
Swallows are still Capistrano’s most famous citizens, well-known and well-loved, protected in San Juan Capistrano by ordinance, which declares the city a bird sanctuary. Romantics all over the world consider the swallows one of the best remains of the colorful past of early California.
July 14th, 2006