You Have to Be Swift to See Swallows!

This gallery contains 5 photos. The gorgeous Tree Swallow has iridescent blue-green feathers. A fast flyer, it was almost as difficult to photograph as the hummingbirds! This male is just taking off for more aerial maneuvers.

Difficult, except for the times when it stopped to perch atop one of many nesting boxes located near the “shorelines” of many a pond in the Reifel Migratory Bird sanctuary. There was a “bonus” yellow jacket on the number of the nesting box — these predatory wasps chew the wood to make their own nests.

Swallows used to be a very common sight in Delta, BC, but the widespread use of insecticides has made their primary food source — insects — hard to come by, and contributed to the swallows’ decline, except in sanctuaries like this. TENDER MOMENT ALERT! The fledgling signals his mother (in gray) that he wants food (“feed me, mom!”)

She acknowledges by feeding him (his blue colours are just coming into his plumage, giving him a scruffy, adolescent look).

And here’s either an adult male displaying for a female, or unable to keep his balance on the nesting box. It’s difficult to tell if she’s trying to steady him with her right claws, or push him off!