When I walk in Grandview Heights at lunchtime, I've often noticed cliff swallows swooping through the air along the river bank and gliding inches from the water...but I never thought to look for their nests until I saw an article in the Columbus Dispatch last week about the swallows nesting underneath the Fishinger Road bridge in northwest Columbus (http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/science/stories/2010/06/20/adapting-to-life-in-ohio.html; the article was still live when this posting was written). This week I took the time to look up under the highway overpasses as I walked, and sure enough, spotted very small colonies of nests under two of them.
Cliff swallows (Hirundo pyrrhonota) are the famous swallows that have returned to the San Juan Capistrano mission in California for decades. These small, graceful birds once built their mud nests, which resemble small clay jars, on rocky cliffs. The colonies can be quite large, with hundreds of birds raising their broods simultaneously. As their habitats change they are adapting to building on man-made structures such as building ledges and yes, highway bridges. Even the Capistrano swallows now apparently prefer a nearby country club's building to their traditional nesting sites!
Cliff swallows nest in colonies and feed in flocks, catching insects on the wing. They are dark gray-brown above with some white on the forehead and back, with white belly, buff rump, and a reddish-brown throat. In flight they resemble the barn swallow, also found in central Ohio, but the cliff swallow's tail is square at the tip rather than forked. These birds are aerial acrobats, swooping and diving after insects and even dipping down to drink on the wing. This small colony is very entertaining on my lunch hour walk as they catch their dinners--mosquitoes, I hope!--and wheel through the air like tiny barnstormers.
No comments:
Post a Comment