Swallow Two

Yesterday I posted a picture of a Tree Swallow, along with a picture of an Eastern Bluebird.

The Tree Swallows first appears (to my knowledge) about two years ago. They probably visited the pond before, but they never stayed. It occurs to me, as I write, that their nesting at the pond is related to the erection of the bluebird nesting boxes. The swallows and bluebirds compete for the boxes across the dam, with Brown-headed Nuthatches taking the box across the spillway, and Chickadees in the box further up the path from there.

However, for several years before the Tree Swallows stayed to nest, the only swallows I saw at Seagroves were Bank Swallows. They don’t appear regularly, but they are occasional visitors in the summer months, showing up for a few days at a time, then disappearing again. It’s possibly a migratory pattern.

There have been a pair of Bank Swallows around the pond for the past few days. I’ve found they don’t startle easily, so it is possible to get quite close for a photograph.

While not as brilliantly colored as the Tree Swallows, the Bank Swallows make up for it in almost teddy-bear softness.

One other difference you might notice between the two birds is that the Tree Swallows tend to fly high above the pond, staying fairly close to the eastern (dam) side of the pond. Whereas the Bank Swallows fly much closer to the water and prefer the western (dock) side of the pond.