April 30, 1981 - The Swallows Are BackApril 30, 1981 The *Uffolk IMMC5
The Swallows Are Back
The swallows are back and that means
that it has been warm enough for insects to
hatch and start flying. Without food there
would be no swallows. The swallows I -•aw
Saturday were barn swallows, probably
the most common we have here on Long
Island.
As the name implies, the barn swallow
builds its nest in barns and old buildins,s
What's that I hear? "My front porch isn'i
an old building." True, we do have ex-
ceptions and when the barn swallow.
makes up his mind to build he'll choose
almost any suitable place -- whether it's an
old building or someone's front porch.
Most of us don't mind birds using our
porch for building or rearing their young.
But sometimes it gets a bit out of hand and
I'm sure there are plenty who can vouch
for that. Ady Schreiber, the master
mushroom hunter of Southold, roped off
his front porch last year to assure there
would be no disturbance while a pair of
swallows raised their young.
Barn swallows have that smooth and
graceful flight so characteristic of their
breed. The forked tail and pale rusty
orange breast adds beauty to this insect -
gathering machine and makes him No. 1
on my swallow list.
Down the road from me in Pete K's old
barn swallows nest each summer. Even
with the roar of his tractor and the ins and
outs of routine work, they weren't
discouraged or disturbed. Of course, there
has to be a bit of calculated placement of
the tractor so that it doesn't come right
CLAUDIO'S
Is Re- Opening
For The Season
On Saturday
Main St. Wharf, Greenport
477 -9800
qo�n(�
M:�RER,q
under their nest, but otherwise Pete
welcomes their yearly visits. Perhaps it's
because he's closely tied to the land, being
a farmer all his life, so he sees past the
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john C.'. -koss
little inconveniences they might bring.
In the short time of 25 years that we've
lived in our house, I've seen the disap-
pearance of the tree swallows from our
pasture and creek marsh. I put swallow
boxes (one and a quarter inch hole) on
almost every pasture fence post when we
first came here and out on stakes in our
marsh. Most of the boxes were used each
year but slowly their use diminished. In the
last five years none have been occupied by
swallows. These tree swallows are hand-
some birds with white bellies and blue -
green -black above and I always felt that
down on the marsh edge they were worth
their weight in gold in doing in the
greenheads that are so persistent on our
beaches and in our creeks. For after all it
Page 15
is there in the marsh that the flies breed.
What better control than a box or two of
tree swallows right at the hatching site.
Martin's Apartment house
The same is true of the martin, the
largest of the swallow family. These dark
blue -black birds nest in colonies and I was
first introduced to them many, many
years ago in Manorville where they nested
in an apartment box that Gil Raynor had
put up for them. With that in mind, it was
one of the first big operations I undertook
when we first moved here on Skunk Lane
and sure enough it lured martins to it. It
was on a high pole in the corner of the
sca 9
,A NORTH FORK
RESTAURANT
(continued on page 18)
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Page 18 ,- - 9be o3uffolk gimto
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April 30, 1981
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PURPLE MARTINS - -Once a common bird on the East End, the martin
now has dwindled to just a trickle of a once - abundant population. Do you
know where there are any? Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
Swallows
(continued from page 15)
pasture where the birds had full view and
flight all around.
These community boxes can be bought
now, prefab, for $30 to $40, but, getting a
colony here on the East End might not be
as easy as it was years ago. I can still
remember the colony I had. Their cheerful
chatter and wonderfully graceful flight
was something you never tired of seeing or
hearing, but sorry to say they no longer
nest in my box.
The English sparrow and starling have
taken over. Not because they're more
agressive, but because we no longer have,
any martins. I'd like to know of any
martins that are still occupying territories
here on the East End. These, along with
the barn swallow and tree swallow, were
our most common swallows and did a
great job of keeping down the insect
population. No wonder I seem to be
swatting more and more. The swallows
have become less and less. Probably this
idea of insect eating is the reason the
swallow is appreciated by most. Yet their
flight was what intrigued me most. There
is no more graceful small bird than the
swallow. Many is the time I remember
when we'd be cutting hay how the
swallows would work around the fields.
Seems every swallow for miles around was
attracted and in they came diving,
swooping, zooming up into a stall to snatch
the disturbed insects our hay machines
had riled up. It was a sight indeed. We see
few swallows over our fields today with the
exception of a few barnswallows. I wonder
how long they'll last in our world.
Threat To The South
Yet what we see here is only a fraction of
what faces our feathered friends no matter
what species. Word from down below
where the birds migrate in the winter is
the most disturbing of all. From Central
and South America the clearing of land
and the alteration of wintering grounds is
truly the biggest threat they face.
After all we see them only a short time in
the summer. The majority of their time is
spent feeding in their southern retreats.
Emerging countries like our own in the
pioneering days pay little attention to
conservation and wildlife. The result is
that wintering habitats for these birds are
under tremendous pressure.
Where will they be in 10, 20 or 50 years
from now? Already I've seen a tremen-
dous setback in our swallow population
and this is only one small segment of our
bird population. When will the world wake
up and realize that the natural world
should be considered along with man's
interests. Until it does, we are on a crash
course with disaster.
PAULSTOUTENBUKGH
P.S. - Saw my first hummingbird of the
season on Sunday.
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