Most of the time, tree swallows move so astoundingly fast it’s hard to see anything but a blur. They’re in such constant motion they rarely stop long enough to offer more than a glimpse of their deep blue-and-white plumage that looks like a tiny tuxedo.
A Tree Swallow comes in for a landing. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal
So I was surprised one windy afternoon last month on the plains of eastern Wyoming when I came across a full dozen Tree Swallows clinging to a barbed-wire fence. The wind was so strong they were momentarily grounded. When they did try to fly, the wind held them in place for a time as they took off and landed.
It was as if these little aerial acrobats were frozen in the air.
As long as the wind kept up, I had a chance to catch these birds in the midst of takeoffs, landings, feedings, squabbles, gobbles, squawks and occasionally quiet moments of stillness.
Nobody knows these hyperactive birds better than David Winkler, a long-time professor at Cornell University who researched swallows throughout his career before retiring two years ago. He’s still working with his swallows, to his great delight.
“They’re masters of the air,’’ he said. “I never get tired of looking at them.’’
Winkler has studied the swallows’ migration, feeding and mating habits, their flight dynamics and nesting routines. He started toward the beginning of his career as a professor of ornithology, and he found no end to the questions about swallows he hoped to answer.
The wind blows a swallow slightly off course.
What he finds most fascinating is their tireless drive, the same thing that makes them so fascinating to watch in flight. “They don’t let anything get in their way,’’ said Winkler.
The other day I spotted a Red-tailed Hawk perched on an irrigation rig in a field roughly a quarter-mile away. Suddenly it saw something move on the ground near me and was instantly in the air headed straight in our direction.
All summer long, I’ve encountered juvenile birds unsure of how to behave, hesitant as they explored the world for the first time. There was a juvenile Eastern Bluebird who, like this hawk, hung around like we were best friends. Sometimes the young birds will still be in training with their parents. But eventually they have to head out on their own, and many have long migration trips ahead.
As the climate has changed, the Ibis has slowly expanded its reach. You can find them as far north as the Carolinas, depending on the season, as this map from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology shows.
They’re not hard to spot; that’s partly because of their long, pink beaks they use to sift for crustaceans, fish and insects, and partly because they’re rarely alone. They fly, feed – and just hang out – in groups of dozens of birds.
