Tammie Rogers
Inspired by Dogs & Nature
Nest Building Tree Swallows
At the end of April, a Tree Swallow pair arrived, began building a nest in the office yard center nest box, then abandoned it due to House Sparrow issues. I am fairly certain that same pair is the one that set up residence in the front yard, north box. At the time, I wasn’t seeing many other Tree Swallows in the area.
On April 27th I filmed that pair interacting with at least two other Tree Swallows that seemed to me, no data to support this, to be kin (perhaps last year’s fledglings.) You can see those images here: https://tammierogers.wordpress.com/2020/04/
On May 1st, I noticed a number of Tree Swallows in the backyard area engaged in some serious aerial acrobatics paired with chirps and squawks, swoops, dives and incredible banking on the edge of the fairly high winds we were experiencing. To my human eyes, it appeared to be a festival on wing, as if the birds hadn’t seen each other for months and seemed happy to meet up, again. Yeah, OK. That might be a bit theatrical. Perhaps it’s just my hominid brain reaching for interpretation, but I have made a living observing and interacting with animals, so I’m going to go with that.
The next day, May 2, I was privy to nest building activities of a Tree Swallow that had decided to take ownership of one of the gourds in the Purple Martin Gourd Tower that we erected earlier this year nearby the Red House – a social cavity house that was used by Purple Martins last year, and has been occupied by them this year, as well. The Purple Martins that are busy working on nests in the Red House often perch on the top of the Gourd Tower, but I haven’t yet noticed any of them choosing to build a nest in any of the Gourds, until very recently.
Although all these photos seem to be the same, they are individual events that transpired nearly every couple of minutes. I’m posting them all, not because they are uber-fine quality images. They aren’t. But, simply to give a glimpse of all the work this bird put into the nest in such a short period of time. I was able to snap one photo as the bird approached. Then, it went to the opposite side of my view. In less than a minute, it flew off. I was able to catch photos of the exit, as well, but I’m not posting them all here because, let’s face it, how many low quality images of a nice bird can you look at before you get bored and don’t go all the way to the end to see the videos!
The Tree Swallow stayed true to his (her?) mission all afternoon. I, personally, observed twenty trips that little bird took – carrying a beak full of grass clipping and other vegetal matter up to the tower. He had selected a gourd that faces away from the yard, and my position on my patio, so I didn’t see him actually enter the gourd, but I saw him carry the material to it and fly away with an empty mouth. All the while, Purple Martins perched on the tower, coming and going, preening, chortling and cajoling with their companions. Neither species seemed to be concerned about the other, albeit they were within inches of each other some of the time.
I have read that, because they are territorial about their nests, Tree Swallows that occupy a Purple Martin house will chase the Martins away and therefore, it is prudent to discourage their pursuit to house there. Clearly, that sort of behavior wasn’t transpiring on the day that the Tree Swallow decided to move into the gourd. Below are some photos of the Purple Martins, including a few that include the Tree Swallow flying into their Gourd Tower.
Robert brought a video camera and captured a bit of the action. I have posted a couple of short videos of that, below.
