BIRDS KEEP TRYST

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 April 1937, Page 3

BIRDS KEEP TRYST

TRIUMPH OF PUNCTUALITY

SAN FRANCISCO, March 30

One of the most amazing exhibitions of bird sagacity was exemplified in the ancient Spanish mission township of San Juan Capistrano, in Southern California, when the swallows arrived at the Old Mission punctually to time as in years' passed by. They kept a St. Joseph’s Day tryst with time that has not been broken for 125 years. And to make their triumph of punctuality more spectacular they immediately started one of the most terrific of bird warfare on record. Around, in, under, over/ and about their mud nests left from last year tliey fought the, English sparrows. They fought the black and white swifts, and they even fought themselves. It was battle, battle, battle from dawn to dusk. . For these cream-headed, grey-breasted, redrumped cliff swallows came in almost with the sunrise. , Technically and scientifically the birds are known as Detrochelidon lunifrons, and science says they arrive in these parts during March every year, day not specified.

But it was religion and not science that held the upper hand in Capistrano this day. At San Juan Capistrano Mission, founded by 'Father Serra in the year of the American Revolution, 1776, it has become a hallow-ed-tradition' that the swallows, harbingers of Spring, always arrive on St. Joseph’s Day. Every preparation is made to greet them, whether they come from Jerusalem, as some think, or from South America, as o<*lier experts say. But this year was no exception. It was exactly 5.56 a.m. — about forty minutes after daylight—that the first swallows swooped down from out of the western sky and zoomed high across the Mission garden toward the north-east, above the little cross on the school building. These were only a handful. But at 6.13 a.m., as the sun was spiralling rapidly towards the top of the green hills to the east, and the sky was growing brighter and brighter, a large additional group pirouetted into sight 'almost like dust motes in the sun’s path. They were bolder thau the first and swooped lower.

But still none attempted to' enter the nests under the eaves of the ancient adobe church or under the ruined dome of the stone church wrecked by the earthquake of 1812. This was the battle day and the first shock troops were not ready for the assault until reinforcements arrived. As the minutes dragged by, the crowd of human spectators grew rapidly larger. Even before 5.30 a.m. the automobiles were lined up outside the locked front, door of the mission—a veritable cathedral relict of ancient Spanish occupation of California. At* 6 a.m. the gates were opened and the crowd streamed in as the familiar white pigeons, excited by this early morning confusion, fluttered down to he petted and fed. But nobody was interested in the pigeons this day. Every neck craned at the upper sky, every eye was roving from horizon to horizon for a glimpse of the darting dots that meant swallows. Then at 6.36 a.m. things began to happen. From somewhere, generally west, a much larger number of swallows, numbering several score, appeared with exceeding suddenness. The old stone church, standing mute and mil-

dewed in neglected splendour, became a battleground.

VERDUN OF BIRDOM. i

High on its side, built against a cornice, was a strategic mud nest, a swallow’s prize, a Verdun of birdom. The swallows were attacking and the sparrows were defending. Strangely enough, the swifts, traditional foes to the swallows, were nowhere to be seen, not,in the sky and not even in the. crevices that they inhabit in the ancient church.

The sparrows—about eight of them in this skirmish—grouped themselves about the gourd-shaped.mud nest, and one actually hopped inside. The swallows iii serried. ranks flew to the attack, s.wdoping. down with the.'chirring cries that distinguish them. At first they did not light on the nest. Then they did, and literally pecked feathers out of the sparrows. These latter, rather dismayed, flew back arid forth, but during a lull entered the nest again with a guard standing outside. The swallows,'bolder than ever, drove them out again. L

Then, from nowhere, a swarming horde, of swifts, which in flight resemble in colour nothing so much as a black and white skunk, plummettcd out of the heights and added their shriller cries to the fray.

Like Indians harrying ' a wagon train, they whirled past the strategic nest in single file, driving sparrows and swallows both before them. Yet this temporary setback gave the swallows the opportunity, they had been waiting Yor; As the battle raged around the stone church they whirled up into the sky and then unostentatiously circled around to the dozens of mud nests under the low eaves of the old adobe church, where inside the. tapers burned in honour of St. Joseph.,

The swallows in pairs flew to the spots on the eaves, where old nests had fallen off, and clung there for minutes at a time as if in mute supplication for a new nest to spring up. Other more fortunate and ; bellicose ones contested among themselves for the nests that remained on the walls. Sometimes six or eight at a time were trying to get in a nest at once. Then more sparrows saw the excitement and came and joined in the chirping, fluttering niass.

SWIFTS BAFFLED. Meanwhile,' th 6 swifts circled in ever-increasing numbers above the stone church as if baffled by the absence of enemies who had deserted the field of honour, not knowing that, as in years past,, the swallow would finally disposses them in a day or two when still more reinforcements would arrive.

All this time, children were running back and forth over the paths and leaping over flic grave of Father St. John O’Sullivan, mission restorer who. strangely enough, was born on Swallow Day, March 19, himself and ■who now sleeps with thousands of Indians iii the. mission graveyard. Father Arthur .1. Hutchinson, the mission padre, in black gown and lace surplice, sped to the four corners of the mission grounds, peering at the sky and greeting friends. The radio men were busy setting up their complicated apparatus for a national broadcast which took place at 10.-15 a.m.

Newspaper photographers climbed ladders and crawled up buttresses endeavouring to get close-ups of the

birds. An elderly woman in a wheel chair was pushed from one scene of activity to another. Tiny Mexican babes in pink rompers played underfoot on the paths. As the day wore on, the swifts kept up their eternal circling, the white pigeons cooed and pranced. The cedar waxwing sat sleepily in the bushes, the green-backed bullfinches flitted about, the sparrows kept up their nervous chattering, but the swallows went off to the feeding grounds. The nests were left practically deserted until evening, when the whole was fought over again. The swallow scouts arrived on the previous day and the day betore that, in small numbers. They literally came in on the appointed day—St. Joseph’s Day. The swallows that arrived had blunt tails, cut off square as if with a knife. They were not barn, roughwinged, nor tree swallows, but the cliff variety (hat make nests out of lumps of mud and line them warmly with feathers. The townspeople had a “Fiesta do las Goldondrinas” to welcome the birds. There was music outside and singing inside the. mission walls in honour of both St. Joseph and the birds. ' it was a day of rejoicing, at-

tracting nation-wide attention. Despite the fanfare and the warfare that tore all birdom, it was still a i happy time for all. “Las Golondrinas” had come home again true to tradition and promptly with an uncanny something difficult to define in bird life.