Tossing Feathers for Swallows

Tree Swallow Gathering Nesting Material - Photo Earl Harrison

Editor’s Note: “Toss the Feathers” is a traditional folk song — but that’s not what this article is about. Instead, how about swallows picking feathers out of the air to line their nests?  

Several years after my first nesting Tree Swallows in 1977, I tossed pheasant feathers for Tree Swallows nesting in Delaware State Park. I was elated when, for the first time, an adult swallow snatched a floating feather from the air and delivered it to its nestbox. Swallows prefer gray or white feathers from less colorful birds than pheasants, but I was an avid hunter then, and like the swallow, had to make do with what I had. Years later, Jed Burtt gave me a huge supply of white chicken feathers that he acquired from a biological supply company. He needed sterile feathers for research projects at Ohio Wesleyan University and for field trips with his ornithology classes.

Researchers have found that nests with more feathers have greater hatching and fledging rates. Feathers lining a nest cup insulate eggs and nestlings from cold spring temperatures. Feathers also help camouflage and hide white swallow eggs. As I recorded data from nests that fledged more than 26,000 Tree Swallows since 1977, I have found nests with black feathers from crows, grackles, and more recently, cormorants, but these are rare extremes. Most swallows prefer white, gray, and light brown feathers. Each spring, as I start seeing Canada Goose goslings, light brown goose feathers appear in my nestboxes proving that Tree Swallows know how to recycle feathers from used goose nests.

As the latest swallow season approached, my feather supply was low and I needed a local feather source. I contacted the Poultry Barn near Ostrander and as the owners processed chickens for markets, they gave me three handfuls of wet and steamy feathers in a zip-lock plastic bag. I improvised and discovered a successful technique to convert wet feathers back into fluffy floating specimens that I can offer to my Tree Swallows.

Most oranges are sold in bags of red plastic webbing with 1/4-inch openings. I cut off the paper label from three of these bags and tied one of their ends into a knot. I placed globs of wet feathers in each bag and knotted their remaining ends. I put the bags of feathers in my washer, added detergent, and washed the experimental load on the cold wash/cold rinse cycle.

When I lifted the washer’s lid, I found that nearly every feather had escaped from its bag and had stuck to the wall of the washer’s drum. Even though I was disappointed, the good news was that any flesh that came with the feathers remained inside their bags.

Not to be deterred, I used my hand to scrape feathers off the drum’s wall and placed them into a pillow case. I used ribbon to tie the pillow case shut near its open end and placed it in my dryer for a 30-minute cycle. When I untied the pillow case, I had a bag full of fluffy feathers ready to be tossed. Since most of the feathers will be tossed by others, including children, I can also declare that my feathers are sterile and safe to handle.

Stratford Ecological Center sponsored an appreciation event for its volunteers on May 3 and I was asked to toss feathers during two of the farm’s wagon tours. We stopped alongside the farm’s Tree Swallow nestbox grid and I dismounted from the wagon to address the group as to what to expect. I encouraged children to toss the feathers, and on each tour, about a dozen children of all ages dismounted, along with some adults. I passed out feathers and the tossing began. As always, the children really got into the action and several made three or more running trips back to me to receive more feathers. Active Tree Swallows won over many fans that afternoon and hopefully some of the children will blend avian conservation into their future lives.

I was invited back to Stratford on May 21 to speak to their photography club and toss feathers for photographers so they could capture the action with their cameras. I arrived early and found that Tree Swallows and Barn Swallows were zipping back and forth as they gleaned flying insects above the mowed grass in front of the center’s main building. Kindergarten students were sitting in a circle on the lawn as they ate their packed lunches. I decided to toss some feathers in the yard.

I started tossing feathers and the wind was gently lifting the feathers up and over toward the unsuspecting kids on the lawn. Immediately, Tree Swallows started snatching feathers and taking them back to their nestboxes, but I was most excited to see Barn Swallows also snatch feathers! Still, the children were unaware of what was going on within 20 feet of their lunch area. Since I am a trouble maker at heart, I started to move in position so my floating feathers would glide toward the children, but the swallows were intimidated by the concentration of our species and veered away from the children at the last moment if their targeted feather floated too near. By the time about five kids and their teacher had spotted the swallows and my strange behavior, it was time for me to enter the building for the photo club’s meeting.

At the meeting, I described possible photo shots. The most difficult would be to catch the image of a swallow snatching a feather in midair, or record a feather thief as it plucks a feather from another’s beak, and the easiest shot would be to focus on a nestbox with a tripod-mounted camera to record a swallow landing at the entrance with its feather. Of course, seeing a male deliver his trophy to his mate waiting in the entrance hole is an inspirational sight that I have seen a half dozen times. Another photo opportunity is to focus on a feather that has fallen to the ground before a swallow could catch it; a swallow will hover like a hummingbird in order to pluck a feather from vegetation. I call this activity “mining for feathers.”

After the indoor meeting, nine members retrieved their photo equipment from their cars and we all hiked to nestboxes evenly spaced at 25 yards apart to form a grid in front of a pond where I tossed feathers and club members had fun trying to catch the action with their cameras. Purple Martins don’t use feathers in their nests, so the resident martins, even though they are swallows, did not take part in the action. It was a good afternoon activity.

Inspired by the Barn Swallows snatching feathers earlier, once I returned home that day, I consulted one of my favorite books, Kenn Kaufman’s The Lives of North American Birds. I looked up the swallow family to find that in our region, not only do Barn Swallows add feathers to their nests, but so do Bank Swallows, Cave Swallows and Cliff Swallows. There were Cliff Swallows nesting at Delaware State Park and I eagerly planned to share my first experience tossing feathers for Cliff Swallows.

A bag of feathers and Kenn Kaufman's North American Birds
A sandwich bag full of feathers and Kenn Kaufman’s book rest atop a plastic webbed bag that is used to prepare feathers for tossing.

I have been teaching “Bluebird Trail Management” for the last 27 years at the OWjL (pronounced “owl”) Academic Camp for talented and gifted middle school students at Ohio Wesleyan University. Students live in a dormitory for one of three weeks prior to the week of July 4. They attend four classes each day and enrichment activities in the evenings. I only teach during the first class period each day. My Monday lesson is held on campus and consists of introductions, conservation books, handouts, history of bluebirds in Ohio and a tour of the OWU Zoology Museum. We visit my nestboxes in Delaware State Park on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays to experience nests with eggs, young and old nestlings of House Wrens, Tree Swallows and Eastern Bluebirds. We weigh one or two avian families with nestlings less than three days old on Tuesday, and again on Thursday, to see how much they grow in 48 hours. Usually, they double their weight which I then compare birds to people for powerful lessons. Good data on 166 nestboxes makes many lessons possible, then on Friday, we stay on campus and each student nails six precut and predrilled pieces of wood together to make their own nestbox to take home.

On June 10, my first weekly class was in the park for its second field trip and each of the six 12-year-olds and their college-aged counselor had just banded a nine-day-old House Wren from a nestbox that stood among 17 other boxes spaced to form a grid. For each novice bird bander, I held a wren nestling as he or she moved in with the opened band in its pliers. I coached them to “squeeze” and “open” the pliers to attach the numbered aluminum bracelet onto the bird’s leg. My fingertips stabilized the pliers as each bander focused to safely complete the banding process on the tiny bird’s leg.

We also visited older Tree Swallows and students held and inspected the nestlings as I answered their questions. Next, I was also able to catch a female swallow on her eggs to show the campers her pink brood patch. I selected a particular bird because she had completed at least five days of incubation, so she was not about to abandon her eggs due to my bad manners. I held her in my hand and blew on her belly to part her feathers. Photosynthesis captured the energy flow from the sun and passed it on through the food chain to warm her blood to make life possible in her eggs, and made a good lesson possible. I completed the brood patch display as quickly as possible so I could release the frightened bird so she could burn off her adrenaline. We backed off and the class got to see her return to her eggs.

Before we left the field of 18 boxes, I handed out chicken feathers and the swallows did not disappoint. The campers were excited to see the birds snatch feathers in the air and take them to their nests. An extra bonus was wild strawberries. We had been handling wild birds so I showed the kids how to pick a strawberry by the base of its stem to avoid touching the berry. Wild strawberries are tiny when compared to commercial berries, but their flavor is much more delicious. When we got back to the van, I announced that we were headed to the park’s beach where a small restroom building is home to Cliff Swallows that have built their vase-like mud nests under the roof’s eves. They had seen Kenn Kaufman’s book during Monday’s class, and I described how I learned from Kenn’s book that I should expect Cliff Swallows to snatch feathers just like the Tree Swallows did earlier.

SwallowNestsUnderDeck
With luck, these Cliff Swallow nests at Delaware State Park’s beach have enough feathers for a successful nesting season.

We arrived at the south end of the beach with less than ten minutes left before we had to leave the park for Delaware. The cliffies did not disappoint. The students were happy to see another species collect feathers that they had tossed into the wind. After all, the birds had to be used to human voices and the presence of our species since their nests were above a most active place. Unfortunately, the lake continued to rise and the beach road was closed for the last two weeks of OWjL, but fortunately, the lake’s rising waters failed to reach the Cliff Swallow nests.

To sum things up, tossing feathers for swallows is fun and most bird-theme stores sell feathers for tossing. Also, art supply stores sell feathers although they may not be light in color. Make sure your feathers are legal and small. Chicken breast and belly feathers work best. If you are an avid bird watcher, by next spring add feathers to your equipment list and try to entice swallow species to come closer to you. And if you plan a trip to regions west of the Rocky Mountains, take feathers for when you see nestboxes for Tree Swallows and Violet-green Swallows. Also, find out when different swallow species nest since feather collecting drops off after their eggs hatch. Have fun, and toss on.

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