The Barn Swallow is the swallow with the swallowtail — steely blue above, cinnamon below, with a rusty throat and the deeply forked streamers that gave the tail shape its name. They're aerial hunters of the first order, skimming inches above Michigan hayfields and pond surfaces, banking and rolling after flying insects with total command of the air.
Almost every Barn Swallow in Michigan nests on something human-built: a mud cup cemented to a barn beam, garage rafter, or bridge girder. They arrive in late April, raise one or two broods, gather on wires in chattering late-summer flocks, and leave for South America by September.
Flying insects nearly exclusively — flies, beetles, moths, and (helpfully) mosquitoes — taken on the wing all day long. They'll follow tractors and lawnmowers to snap up whatever gets flushed.
If you can, tolerate it — nesting lasts only a few weeks and an active nest is federally protected. A board mounted under the nest catches droppings. Deter future nests before building starts, not after.
The Barn Swallow has a rusty-orange throat and a long, deeply forked tail; the Tree Swallow is snow-white below with a shorter, only slightly notched tail. In silhouette, tail streamers mean Barn.
Central and South America — some travel as far as Argentina, a round trip of well over 10,000 miles. They funnel out of Michigan in late August and September.
Most are gone by the end of November. They return in March, reach their highest numbers from May through July, and thin out steadily through late summer as birds head south.
Juveniles have much shorter tail streamers, a paler buff throat and underparts, and a duller blue back. Tail streamer length keeps growing with age, so the longest-tailed birds are the oldest adult males.
A colony when nesting. Barn Swallows nest in small groups under barn eaves, bridges, and culverts, and in late summer they gather into large premigratory flocks that line up along wires by the hundreds.
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