Katie Says: Soar with the swallows

Last weekend, my boyfriend and I visited one of our favorite places: Lorimer Park. Lorimer borders Fox Chase Farm, and as one walks the border of the park, you can look onto the rolling green hills of the farm. That day, the hills were being visited by a host of bird species all looking for their dinner: American robins, American bluebirds, European starlings, red-winged blackbirds and three species of swallows.

I love all bird species, but I especially love swallows. I have always said that if ever I were to be reincarnated, it is a swallow that I would want to come back as. I just love the effortless way they swoop, glide and zoom over the landscape, sometimes seeming to enjoy flying for the sheer fun of it. These swallows were flying over one of the highest hills of un-mown grass in order to collect insects that were bravely (or foolishly!) rising from the safety of the grass to land on the canopy of the nearby trees.

For a while, Quentin and I focused our binoculars on individual swallows to watch them fly. There were barn swallows, with their deeply-forked tail; tree swallows, with blue backs and white bellies; and cliff swallows, which look very similar to barn swallows, but lack the forked tail. Let me tell you, focusing your binoculars on an individual swallow is a great way to keep your skills with a pair of binoculars tuned—you constantly have to rock the focus to keep them in your sights! We then decided to try something new, and focused instead on individual insects rising from the grass. It wasn’t long before the insect that I was following would disappear behind the blur of a swooping swallow. Swallows are such good flyers that not only do they feed on the wing, but they drink and bathe as well, swooping to the water’s surface to get a drink or just beneath the surface for a bath, a literal “quick dip.”

Sometimes it’s fun to analyze the “hows” of nature and sometimes we ponder the “whys,” but sometimes…it’s just nice to stop and watch the swallows. Have a question or a story of your own to share? Post a comment below; it’s free and you don’t have to create an account!