15 April: Swallows

It's Swallow Day. Here are ten things you may not know about swallows:

1. Swallows belong to the family Hirundinidae which also includes martins. The family contains around 83 species. They are not related to swifts.
2. Their body length ranges from about 10–24 cm (3.9–9.4 in) and their weight from about 10–60 g (0.35–2.12 oz). They have long, pointed wings with nine primary feathers, and long tails with 12 feathers. They are built to fly and are much more efficient at flying than most other birds of a similar size.
3. They are known for feeding while in flight, swooping on flying insects in the air. This isn't random - they do select the kind of insect they want to eat and will avoid the ones that sting, like bees or wasps. They also drink while in flight, swooping low to sip the Water.
4. When choosing a mate, the female swallow looks at the tail length of her potential partner (males have longer tails) and also his flying skills.
5. There are swallows on every continent except Antarctica. They are often found near waterways, where there will be lots of flying insects, but they are also found on grasslands, open woodland, savanna, marshes, mangroves, scrubland, farmland and even in cities. They like to nest in open fronted buildings and around large domestic animals such as cattle or Horses. Their numbers are thought to have increased when humans started raising these animals.
6. The collective noun for a group of swallows is a "flight" or "sweep". When they are not breeding, they do tend to flock and roost in large groups. A winter roosting site of barn swallows in Nigeria attracted 1.5 million individuals.
7. Swallows, especially in temperate climates, are migratory birds. However, many years ago, people thought that they buried themselves in mud and hibernated through the winter.
8. Swallows have been known to attack human beings that come too close to their nests.
9. The swallow is called the "bird of freedom" because it cannot endure captivity and will only mate in the wild. That hasn't stopped humans from trying to exploit their migratory instincts, rather like we do with Pigeons. Roman historian Pliny the Elder described a use of swallows to deliver a report of the winning horses at a race, while later on, in the nineteenth century, Jean Desbouvrie attempted to tame swallows and train them for use as messenger birds. He had some success with younger birds and the French Government looked into the possibility, but only briefly.
10. It is considered lucky to spot the first swallow when it returns in the spring. It is also considered lucky to see one at sea, probably because they are land birds and therefore, if you see one, land cannot be far away.

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