After the Swallows

Ecotypic Interchangeability

There have always been barn swallows in the barn at the Elson Farm. The farm, situated in the hills on the northern rim of the Ohio River valley 3 miles north of Toronto, Ohio, has been in cultivation since pioneer days. The old barn, slate-roofed, and weather worn, like brown velvet, is some 200 years old, and has been the nesting place for 10 to 15 pairs of barn swallows for all the years I have been going there, but not this year.

Darting through the air, at times with short glides, the barn swallows seem to fly effortlessly in their pursuit of flying insects. They eat on the fly, moving on powerful wings, that propel their bodies in swift turns, ascents and descents—patrolling a large volume of airspace.

Mowing a meadow is a great treat because the barn swallows come out in force, wheeling and diving, acrobatically flying ahead of the mower capturing insects which flee the blades of the mower. That they avoided each other in the pursuit of flying insects is tribute to their well honed flying skills.

This year only one pair came back to the barn. I don't know if they made a nest. They were present for a week or so and then disappeared. The old barn without barn swallows is like trees without leaves, April without showers, or May without flowers. Earl Baysinger, senior wildlife biologist, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in Washington, hazarded the guess that the barn swallows may have roosted with a flock of "black birds"—starlings, grackles and the like—and may have been killed when APHIS (Agricultural Plant Health Inspection Service) eliminated the flock. Blackbirds in roosts, like vermin, are exterminated. They are doused with detergent in near freezing weather. The detergent removes their feather oils, allowing the birds to get wet and to freeze to death. Dr. Baysinger thinks that birds other than the blackbirds may roost in those avian condominiums and get exterminated in the process.

The hay was especially high this year, as high as my shoulders seated on the tractor. Timothy spikes and orchard grass panicles billowed gently in the breeze. Large numbers of leaf hoppers disturbed by the mowing, took flight from the falling grass stalks. They landed on my shirt and arms and then back into the uncut grass. I mourned the loss of the barn swallows. What's a feast without feasters. More importantly I missed the company of the flying acrobats. I remember seeing a mid-air capture. Normally, the insect prey are so small and the flight of the bird so fast that the act of capture is not visible to the unassisted eye. The bird swoops, turns, wheels, in continuous motion and one has to assume that somewhere in the path of that flight the barn swallow captures an insect. My eye caught the erratic, brownian-motion flight of a cabbage moth. At the same time I saw the swallow, over my head, on a dive path for the moth. There was a slight, last moment, flight path correction and the barn swallow and the moth were on a collision course. It took two gulps to swallow the moth. The first gulp captured the moth but with white wings fringing the dark beak. At a moments interval—one beat of the wings—the second gulp and the moth was gone. That barn swallow was one of about 10 that were with me that day while I mowed the grass in the old apple orchard that once supplied apples, down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, to the New Orleans market. Now here I was m the east meadow, the field curving saddle-like around the hill top, with the hay tall and supple, seed heads dancing on the breeze with leafhoppers all about and no barn swallows. I mourned for them.

As the sickle-bar mower cuts a swath of hay, it leaves a wall of grass at the outer edge of the mower. The mower blade in rapid oscillations cuts the grass a few inches above the ground. The cut hay rigidly falls back across the mower blade while the uncut grass stands undisturbed. Glancing along this wall of uncut hay, I could see the insect activity for some distance. I noticed at intervals dragon flies. My mind went back to green shaded streams, with softly gurgling water and dragon flies at intervals, flying back and forth, wings and body gleaming with blue, black metallic luster, patrolling their territories, and occasionally engaging the competitor in the next territory. They dart back and forth, wings glinting in the sun, eating flying insects, mostly mosquitoes. Anything that eats mosquitoes can't be all bad. What were they doing here in a hayfield?

If the barn swallows were here they would surely be feeding on dragon flies but the barn swallows are not here. That's it. The barn swallows are not here! The dragon flies have taken the place of the absent barn swallows. Without the barn swallows to prey on them, the dragon flies have taken the place of the barn swallows in the food chain and are here feasting on the barn swallow's prey. Around the field my tractor moved, the sickle bar mower relentlessly felling the forest of grass and every fifty feet or so there was another dragon fly. The dragon flies were not just at the edge of the hay but were dispersed in regular territories throughout the hay. I could see the dragon flies in the next territory over. They were grazing on what ever leaf hoppers moved without regard to the mower, but I could see the dragon flies, in flight, at work, where I was mowing.

Is this what the world is coming to? Humankind through its husbandry practices eliminates the birds and the insects take over? The insects have been on Earth for hundreds of millions of years. They are very numerous and the number of species is so great as not to be enumerated. I love the dragon flies. I see them in my mind's eye on the shore of a green shimmering forest stream, or on the shores of a sky-blue northern lake. I know they are eating mosquitoes and that makes me feel good. My regard for the dragon flies of the hayfield is no less, though I mourn for the barn swallows.

...Ted Sudia...

© Copyright 1990
Institute for domestic Tranquility