Assertive barn swallows in Sullivan

[Milton Trimitsis]

My local barn swallows are taking it up a notch this morning.  First I saw one dive-bombing one of the resident red-tails that was perched on the power line tower.  When the red-tail flushed, the barn swallow continued its harassment for a good distance.  A few minutes later I saw a group of about 14 barn swallows in hot pursuit of a sharp-shinned hawk.  The hawk eventually took cover in the dense canopy of a red oak, but the swallows continued swirling around it and scolding loudly.  This is totally new behavior to me…anyone else seeing this sort of thing?

Cheers!

Milton Trimitsis

Five Sigma Farm

Sullivan, NH

[Kurk Dorsey]

Hi all

Regarding Milton's question, way back in the '80s (1980s, not 1880s), I had the pleasure of working on a research project on tree swallows with Dave Winkler at Cornell.  One of the many things we did was to try to map out which swallows responded to threats, so we had a system where we would release either a 6-foot snake (I think it was a rat snake) or a ferret near the nest boxes, then document which banded swallows would come to defend the nests.  The snake and ferret were tethered, so no risk to the birds, not that the birds were convinced of that (since that was the point, I guess).  Dave's theory was that the swallows would come to defend the nests in which they might have had a genetic interest, since it was like a soap opera with all of the philandering going on.  It's quite a sight when a substantial colony of swallows goes bananas over a giant snake, but it was probably more graceful to watch the barn swallows chase the sharpie.

Kurk Dorsey

Durham

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Sent: Friday, July 3, 2026 11:06 AM
To: nhb...@googlegroups.com <nhb...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [NHBirds] Assertive barn swallows in Sullivan

 

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[Milton Trimitsis]

Kurk,

This sounds like such interesting work, even cooler than the chickadee study (https://www.science.org/content/article/dee-danger) using stuffed predators to probe their alarm language! 

My barn swallow flock seemed to consist of adults and juveniles, and neither the red-tail nor the sharpie encounter happened particularly close to the building where they nest.

Take care,

Milton

On Jul 3, 2026 at 11:45:22 AM, 'Kurk Dorsey' via NHBirds <nhb...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Hi all,

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