Barn swallows are funny little guys. They’ve lived in human dwellings for forever and ever, sometimes to the annoyance of both species, and they know how to take advantage of our presence to get bugs. Speaking of bugs, they really like the flying kind and are specially evolved to be acrobats!
In the past few years here in the Denver, CO area, I’ve observed some interesting behavior that I don’t remember from other places I’ve lived. Here at the intersections, it’s surprisingly common for 5 or so little barn swallows to be swooping around above the cars, chasing insects. On rainy days they fly low, since that’s where the bugs are. Other days they fly a bit higher. Perhaps it’s safer and they observe traffic carefully to see which side is stopped or slow. I can’t say I see the bugs they’re after half as easily as the little birds themselves, but that’s because the birds come within feet of my windshield and distract me.
I find it remarkable and interesting. It’s true that cars hitting birds has resulted in a rapid burst of evolution, the shortening of wings and so on to aid in midair mobility to avoid collisions. This is just the only time I’ve seen birds clearly taking advantage of something inherent to traffic. Dust, bugs, air currents…barn swallows live dangerous lives on the edge but I can see why they do it.
On other topics, I finally witnessed chickadees flying away with the mealworms I’ve been putting out. The female Bullock’s Oriole who has been visiting came, rejected the soggy lemons and peanuts, and flew at the feeder cam to really let me know how displeased she was. Alas. A female hummingbird also visited today! I think she may have been a broad-tailed hummingbird. I’m very pleased Hummer Cam is working well now. Unfortunate that the previous version had to break down so suddenly.
