Warner Park Nature Center BIRD (Bird Information, Research and Data) Intern
wpnc@nashville.gov
My dad likes to say that if he ever wrote an autobiography, he’d call it “Mowing with Swallows,” because of the Barn Swallows (BARS) that love to swoop around him as his lawnmower stirs up insects for them to eat. They’re fairly easy to spot in flight: just look for the characteristic forked tail silhouette and their graceful, swooping movements.
Barn Swallows are a migratory species that spend their breeding season in North America during the summertime and head to Central and South America for the wintertime. They nest in Warner Parks with the largest colonies at the Steeplechase barn and at the Nature Center. The next time you are at the Learning Center, turn your eyes upwards and you can see their nests made of mud on the sides of the building.
This nest is in the middle of a stall at the Steeplechase barn, and the babies are only a few days old!
Because of their choice of nesting location, some people don’t enjoy the presence of Barn Swallows, especially when nestlings start leaving huge messes behind… it can get gross!
However, I think that we should LOVE these birds! Not only are the adults majestic and the babies adorable, but they also are insectivores, providing us an amazing ecological service in the summertime by consuming incredible amounts of insects: around 34,000 insects per nestling!
Courtesy of Charlie Curry. Begging nestlings are a common sight at the Nature Center in the summer. You can hear them even before you can see them!
This summer, I was so excited to be the Warner Park Nature Center BIRD Program Research Intern through support from my college, Lipscomb University. Because Barn Swallows are so reliant on man-made structures for their nests, depend on insects and are incredibly interconnected to us, they were a perfect species for me to study.
How could you resist that little face!? This nestling is seven days old. His eyes and ears are open, and feathers are just about to emerge from the spines on his tail.
This little guy wouldn’t stay away from his sibling!
There are three research techniques I used this year to get to know Barn Swallows better. The first is when a federally permitted bander from the BIRD team places a lightweight numbered band on a nestling. Our hope is that one of these banded nestlings will be recaptured in South America and as they return to Nashville. This can help us learn about survivorship and migration.
Before banding nestlings, we have to climb a ladder and bring everyone down in a basket. These nests are high!
We use special pliers to put the band on so the nestling can’t even feel it.
The second thing we do is assess survivorship from the time they hatch until they fledge (leave the nest). We do this by checking the nests regularly with a tool that looks like a suspiciously large dentist’s mirror! I do this three times a week to count eggs or nestlings, determine hatch dates, and track nestling growth.
Using a mirror lets us see inside the tall nest without scaring the babies inside.
The last aspect of my research is something that anyone can do: observation! I spend a lot of time watching the behavior of these birds, looking at how adults interact with each other, with their nestlings, with other birds, and more. It’s fascinating how complex Barn Swallows are, and I discover new mysteries every day!
Courtesy Charlie Curry. This bird hatched this nesting season. It has a paler face and hasn’t grown the long tail feathers typical of adults: a fun thing to observe!
Most Barn Swallows will begin their migration south within the first couple weeks of August.
Keep an eye out for the last of these birds or look for the nests that they’ve left behind. They’ll be back next spring and might even reuse these nests for a new year!
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