As some of you know there are few nest holes in Plumb beach for Bank Swallow this season and this happened here for the first time ever, as far as I know. For the last couple of weeks, there were total 4 holes in a small sandy wall that span some 10-15 feet high and 15-20 feet wide. I only saw the swallows go into three of these holes. Today, I saw only two open holes while the other two were completely occluded with sand.
I remember at the beginning that two or three other holes closed completely with sand, but this was before they started nesting. At that time, I thought they make few nests and then choose one or two of them to be used. But this time the issue is different. I have seen a swallow go into one of the two closed nests few times which made the possibility of nesting bird inside very high. And this made me think; what if there was a female sitting on the eggs when the hole collapse! Can she make her way out? Are these holes connected to each other from the inside to provide an escape? The sand in this wall seems to be soft and can collapse easily. This will put all the other nests at risk. I have never seen Bank Swallow nests before, so, I have no knowledge of this trouble. I thought some of you might have an answer. Does sand collapse cause any harm to the nesting birds? Is there anything can be done to protect the current nests? Gus Keri -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
