Okay the post everyone expected from me. To be honest, I swear I don’t know my wildlife that well. I certainly spent a lot of time talking about it, especially swallows but that wasn’t so much knowledge as lack of knowledge. As everyone writing this blog knows, I spent a while wondering sporadically what sorts of swallows we had. Mostly because I wasn’t sure and there was variety. Obviously this means that I didn’t know that much about swallows. I just cared a little bit more to attempt to find out.
Summary of story: we have Barn Swallows and Tree Swallows at North Pacific. Barn Swallows are easy, I was just less sure of the Tree Swallows and unsure if there were other varieties. I think it’s just these two.
Barn Swallows, for those who care and those who expect it of me, have dark blue backs and reddy undersides. They also have notably forked tails, which most other swallows in Western North America, do not. And in comparison to any of the other swallows that could be here you would call the barn swallows tail forked and disregard the others’ as not really comparable. The tree swallows have green backs and white undersides.
The barn swallows tend to get into the main buildings quite a bit and they like to let you know with quite a bit of noise when they’re flying around in the rafters. Of course, they are barn swallows so checking out old buildings and probably nesting somewhere in them is to be expected.
The cannery itself is situated between two features that attract the Swallows, the water and a bog. Because of this Swallows are certainly not something to complain about, even when they’re mucking about in the main cannery. With so much insect habitat around the more swallows the better. As soon as you walk in land even a little bit, like say behind the buildings in the fire lane, the whole living on swampy ground thing is readily apparent. So here’s a post to the appreciation of swallows, their antics, and their diet.
And to finish up here’s one out of the three hundred pictures of swallows I took with Naomi’s camera. By the way that’s not an exaggeration; I took three hundred pictures of swallows.
Anne
Dear Anne,
ReplyDeleteremember those VIOLET-GREEN Swallows we see around Protection Island, hmmm, kind a like the ones that nested at YOUR OWN house?!! Why, that could be another species of swallow. Shheeezh. Check their bottoms, get underneath one for a good look (watch for white droppings). Violet-greens, aside from having violet-green backs, have whiter rumps, especially on the sides than do tree swallows. Also violet-greens have white above the eyes.
An update from Anne.
ReplyDeleteThe debate about Violet-Greens was one of the things that made me put so much effort, more than necessary I'm sure, into finding out what sorts of swallows were present.
Aside from Tree Swallows being more likely, at least in general, to nest near water. A overly long period of time, plus one too many photographs, shows that they are Tree Swallows. Or at least most of them are. If there are a few Violet-Greens thrown into the mix I have not seen them.
Anne