Swallows auditioning for Hitchcocks The Birds

[clp38]

I spend most of my weekends out doors riding, and several of my friends stables have swallows that return every year. We enjoy looking out for them and seeing the babies learn to fly before they return to Africa.

They return to the same nests year in, and seem unconcerned about the horses, or indeed ourselves - until this weekend.........

For some reason on Saturday evening when we attempted to enter the building we were attacked by several swallows, who dived at us, whilst making a screech type of noise.

I'm not good with birds in general, and was amazed at how big swallows are when an centimetre from your face!!!

It was quite scary. They repeated this the next morning.

Can anybody explain why our normal friendly cute little swallows that return year in, year out, have started to attack us???? And any ideas how we can prevent this from happening in future?

We presume that they are protecting their young, but are at a loss as to why they have suddenly started to do this, after years of seemingly being oblivious to our comings and goings.

My friend had on a bright pink t shirt, which she wouldn't normally wear on the yard, and we wondered if they may have seen this as a threat? (We normally wear dark "mud" coloured clothing lol!)

[teknomage]

We have swallows nesting in our workshop and large shed every year. This year both nests have fledged 4 youngsters. I've never known them attack us despite the fact that we use both buildings on a daily basis. However, I have seen them indulge in what I call "noisey chase-abouts" which result in the birds swooping about very fast inside the buildings whilst screaming their heads off and on occasion have been "buzzed" very closely during these events, even almost hit.

This behaviour seems to occur when the youngsters reach a certain age - ie they have learnt to fly and it seems like the parents are encouraging them to develop their aerobatic skills - so all the birds (parents included) take to the air and chase one another around, coming very close to anything in their path and zooming in and out of the doorway.

If you were entering the building during one of these chase-arounds, I suppose it could seem alarming as the birds are very noisey and do come very close - I've had my hair brushed by wings more than once in the past. They also come very close to other obstacles in the shed (pillar drill, suspended light fitting, ladder etc). During these chase-arounds the youngsters are particularly boisterous and I've seen them dive-bombing each other in the air and if one lands for a rest, it's siblings will land on top of it and push it off it's perch!

I don't think these events have anything to do with attacking people entering the sheds as I've observed it going on through the open door from well outside the sheds. I have also seen swallows and house-martins gang-up into huge groups to mob passing hawks outside of the buildings - maybe the chase-about behaviour is a practise for this?

On the subject of swallows inside buildings, I had to rescue one of our swallow youngsters from inside the house yesterday - it had flown in through the open back door and couldn't find it's way out. I found it battering in panic against the window right above a sink full of washing-up water. I was so concerned that it would fall exhausted into the water and drown I managed to catch it in my hands at the first attempt and take it back outside. Once tossed up into the air it flew straight up to join it's parents on a wire high above the yard with never a backward glance!

tekno.mage

[rossy]

i know this is months late im new on here and without a doubt the swallows would have had young around. years ago i had a mistle thrush on top of my bobble hat protecting young and also have seen tawny owls attack people whilst they have young . similarly if you cross a field where lapwings nest they will mob you as will terns and seagulls as they try to protect young or nests. skylarks act as if they are injurerd to lure you away hope this helps you . rossy.