Larch Creek Birds

What the birds (and frogs) are saying at a creek in western Washington
Plate 36
Barn Swallow
Johann Friedrich Naumann, Naturgeschichte der Vögel Mitteleuropas, c. 1900
Bird

Barn Swallow

Hirundo rustica
Swallows (Hirundinidae)
Heading out
Summer visitor. Expected here roughly Mar to Oct. Moving on: expectation falls from 49% now to 20% a month from now.
Field marks
A glossy steel-blue swallow with a rusty throat and forehead, pale buff belly and a deeply forked tail with long streamers: the original swallowtail.
Male & female
The male has longer tail streamers and richer colour below; females prefer the longest streamers, so they keep getting longer.
Voice
A liquid, twittering warble that goes on and on, and a sharp 'vit' in flight.
Diet
Flying insects caught low over fields and water, several hundred a day.
Habitat
Farms, bridges and open country; nests almost exclusively on things people built.
Nesting
A mud cup glued to a beam under cover, built from about a thousand beakfuls of mud; 4–5 eggs, two broods.
Size
6½–7½ in long, about ⅔ oz: a quarter of a deck of cards, and it flies to Argentina on that.

A summer visitor that winters in South America, a round trip of up to 12,000 miles. Most have left Washington by early October.

Season how expected it is here, week by week

50%100%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecheard at the creektoday
Fig. 1. BirdNET's range model for this location: the chance this species is present in each week of the year. Orange ticks mark weeks it has actually been heard at the creek; the dashed line is today.

At the creek 5 calls on 2 days, first Oct 29, last Oct 31

2300:00 — 0 calls001:00 — 0 calls02:00 — 0 calls03:00 — 0 calls304:00 — 0 calls05:00 — 0 calls06:00 — 0 calls607:00 — 0 calls08:00 — 1 calls09:00 — 0 calls910:00 — 0 calls11:00 — 0 calls12:00 — 1 calls1213:00 — 0 calls14:00 — 0 calls15:00 — 3 calls1516:00 — 0 calls17:00 — 0 calls18:00 — 0 calls1819:00 — 0 calls20:00 — 0 calls21:00 — 0 calls2122:00 — 0 calls23:00 — 0 callssunrisesunset
Fig. 2. When it calls: all detections by hour of day (today's sunrise and sunset shown).
23Oct 2 — 0 callsOct 3 — 0 callsOct 3Oct 4 — 0 callsOct 5 — 0 callsOct 6 — 0 callsOct 7 — 0 callsOct 8 — 0 callsOct 9 — 0 callsOct 10 — 0 callsOct 10Oct 11 — 0 callsOct 12 — 0 callsOct 13 — 0 callsOct 14 — 0 callsOct 15 — 0 callsOct 16 — 0 callsOct 17 — 0 callsOct 17Oct 18 — 0 callsOct 19 — 0 callsOct 20 — 0 callsOct 21 — 0 callsOct 22 — 0 callsOct 23 — 0 callsOct 24 — 0 callsOct 24Oct 25 — 0 callsOct 26 — 0 callsOct 27 — 0 callsOct 28 — 0 callsOct 29 — 3 callsOct 30 — 0 callsOct 31 — 2 callsOct 31
Fig. 3. Calls per day over the last 30 days.

Recordings

Clearest recording · Oct 29 3:20 pm · 96% sure
spectrogram

From the encyclopedia

The barn swallow is the most widespread species of swallow in the world, occurring on all continents, with vagrants reported even in Antarctica. It is a distinctive passerine bird with blue upperparts and a long, deeply forked tail. In Anglophone Europe, it is just called the swallow; in northern Europe, it is the only member of family Hirundinidae called a "swallow" rather than a "martin".
From Wikipedia, "Barn swallow", CC BY-SA 4.0.