Rough Winged Swallow

Earlier posts on this topic are probably found under Tree Swallows

Last week and for the second year in a row, we had a pair of swallows flying and swooping low around our yard. They at first looked like tree swallows but were dark brown. I got out the bird book and identified them as Northern Rough Winged swallows. They were trying to get into the furnace PVC exhaust pipe that comes out of the side of our house (it is a high efficiency furnace and there can be no obstruction in the exhaust). I wanted to help them find a nesting site but not in our furnace pipe as we were still using the furnace on chilly Michigan nights. I finally had to put a rock into the pipe, taking it out at night. They then tried to do the same thing in our heated barn PVC furnace pipe and again I decided to block their entrance with a small rock. I built a rectangular box open on the end out of 5/4" cedar that was about 6" square and 9" long for them and set it up on a ladder about 7' high but they never came back.

If they come back next year, I'd like to be ready to help them. Does anyone on the list have any knowledge on how a human can help these cavity nesters?
Are they common? I had never seen them before last year and they only stayed for a few days. Will they nest in southeastern Michigan?

Thanks,
Carol
Oxford, Michigan

What an interesting observation. On our Savannah EABL Trail in NW Ashland [OH] County, I observed Northern Rough-Winged Swallows entering and leaving some kind of upright natural gas pressure vessel which had been abandoned in an idle pasture used for bison.. There are two large pipe ports on the east side of the vessel about 4' off the ground. It appears that two of the birds are using one of those ports as a nestng cavity. I got a good look at the birds as they perched on the top wire of the pasture fence adjacent to an occupied bluebird nest box. The box has been in that same location for about five years and had three full nestings last season. It is only this season that I have begun to notice the presence of the swallows. Dean Sheldon, Firelands Audubon Society, Greenwich [Huron County], OH

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
These are fairly commonly found nesting at lumber companies and or commercial pipe yards where they nest in the ends of horizontal hollow pipe that is used to hold up bundles of building material.

Bundles of material are normally 4 feet wide and the horizontal pipe supports holding up these bundles are often double sided and they use supports that are 10 feet long and are open on both ends. In the past I measured these nests and they were back in from the opening about 18"
minimum. Normally they use 4" square steel pipe or 4" round pipe for these supports.

Bank and Rough Winged Swallows are also running out of suitable habitat. You can see thousands of Bank Swallows nesting in the parks along the south shores of Lake Erie. People climb these hard sand banks and the nesting tunnels collapse....

I often wanted to experiment with attaching 48" long 4" diameter PVC pipe and mount them up under bridges, overpasses ETC. to see if the Rough Winged Swallows would use this manmade set up. I believe you should probably cap one end either with a PVC cap or cut out a wood plug and mount the pipe securely to the structure.

I think the newer Flexible black Sewer and Drain pipe that is perforated with tiny weep holes and is corrugated would actually make a better nesting site for these swallows than PVC. I believe this black pipe is actually polyethylene plastic. You could mount this horizontally to the wall of the house but bend the end and fasten it so the birds could fly right into the open end now at a right angle to the building wall giving them more flight room.

You could attach this against the walls of buildings right up where the wall meets the flat "Soffit" boards under the eaves of your house. You could build a wood "tunnel" and paint it to match your siding so the neighbors don't think you are insane. If you build one out of wood you could lower it down and leave a 6">10" tall gap so that Eastern Phoebes, Robins and Barn Swallows can also nest on top of this swallow tunnel. If you placed it near the corners of your house the swallows could come in from an end. The angled piece of wood that is cut to cover the triangle formed where the soffit meets the gable end rafters is called a "bird block" by old time carpenters.

We built a bridge over our creek this past year and installed nesting platforms under the steel deck and I have Carolina Wrens and Eastern Phoebes nesting under the bridge in a thick wooded area. I would think that House Wrens would also like this "tunnel" just as Carolina Wrens (House Sparrows
too) like all types of weird cavities sitting or attached to strange places around your house.

Once again people on this list could experiment at home or possibly at their place of work and come up with ways to help the different species of Swallows. KK

> "Once again people on this list could experiment at home or possibly
> at their place of work and come up with ways to help the different
> species of Swallows." KK

We are thinking along those lines as well.

The Eastern Phoebes who were trying to nest under our deck initially tried to start a nest by attaching mud onto the small propane pipe in this picture. The dirt around here is quite orange-red, so you can see it pretty clearly (this is a brand new house - that isn't rust). That nest would have taken a while to build, I think.

After a couple days of watching this and thinking how precarious that nest would be, we added a scrap piece of our deck material to create a ledge, and they immediately began building their nest on that. They didn't build on the other side where there was more surface - they built on the short side closest to their original mud start.

Within a day after adding the ledge, they got this much nest built:

http://www.webbay.com/temp/051906.JPG

Today the nest contains five eggs (she has started incubating):

http://www.webbay.com/temp/5eggs_052706_1.JPG

There are NOT a lot of bridges or rock ledges around here, so clearly the Phoebes (and other birds) need all the assistance they can get. I'll have to convince my neighbors to consider doing this with their decks.

About a month ago, I asked Bluebird-L subscribers if they knew anything about some little brown swallows that were trying to get into the furnace exhaust PVC pipe on the side of my house. I had to put a rock into the pipe to stop them from entering. I guess they were desperate to find a cavity to build a nest, but not there! Thanks to Bet Z., Dean Sheldon and Keith Kridler who provided some insight into what I found out are Northern Rough-Winged Swallows (NRWS).

Not having a nest site, that pair of swallows went away and I hadn't seen another NRWS for weeks until Sunday afternoon. They flew in and started trying to get into the furnace pipe out at the barn where my husband also has a high efficiency furnace. I believe it was the female that actually went in for a few seconds.

We've been landscaping and had a 25 yard pile of top soil in the back yard which may have attracted the swallows in the first place. We also have small sections of extra 4'' PVC laying around which we are using to run sump and rain water away from the house.

I've been wanting to help these pretty little swallows but didn't know how to and was glad to see another (or maybe the same) pair come around. As Keith Kridler suggested, I took a 4' section of 4" PVC sewer pipe that was lying around (not the type with the holes in it), then stuck an end cap on one end of it, wired this strange looking contraption onto my 6' aluminum ladder and placed it just below the furnace PVC pipe with the rock in it at the barn. I then pounded a couple of stakes into the ground and wired the stakes to the legs of the ladder for stability. This thin wall schedule 30 pipe lets in diffused light and I thought the little birds might like it darker, so I taped a black garbage bag around the pipe.

Well, the poor little things took this contraption and have been building a nest for 2 whole days. I looked in there last night with a flashlight and there was a mess of cedar chips, straw, and misc other stuff. The nest was about 18" back from the hole. I don't know what it looks like in there now, but they seem content to now have a place to nest and I'm happy to be helping a native wild bird which is new to me. They are peaceful neighbors to the pair of nesting tree swallows as well as the EABL which are on their second nesting, having fledged 5 babies a couple of weeks ago. This summer is turning out to be a good one (knock on wood) after an extremely cold and rainy May. Even the killdeers at the edge of the driveway are on their 2nd brood (2 of their 4 babies survived). I always keep a keen eye and ear out for HOSP, ready to dispatch them if necessary, but so far they have stayed at the neighbors houses about 300' away.

Carol Fitzpatrick
Oxford, Michigan

Wow GOOD job helping the Rough Winged Swallows! Gee the ladder really adds to the cost of their nestbox:-)))

In our area of the south sun shining on steel pipe that they nest in can really get hot. As you mentioned ours seemed to nest back in the pipe about 18" but I did not know if they did this to get back under the shade of large bundles of material as it would be cooler with the nest under a large bundle of lumber.

If you think about it 18" would be beyond the reach of most raccoons, opossums, cats and hawks and owls. One exception to this when using smooth tube type nestboxes is in the past I have heard female bluebirds may scatter or drop a layer of nesting material all the way from the front of a horizontal tube all the way back to where she would build a nest. Walking over this layer she would pack the material somewhat into a solid mat. A raccoon could reach into the tube and drag this mat to the front of the nestbox and on occasion it would pull the nest and eggs all the way to the front of the box. (There was a wood nestbox call the Tree Branch Nestbox ((maybe invented by a man named Zern?)) that was long and horizontal and he used a half wall towards the back middle to protect against this raccoon
problem.) ((Don Hutchings experimented with PVC long horizontal tubes for bluebirds also and he found they did not want to cross over a half wall back much further than about 12" from the opening. One thing with these boxes if you feel they are nesting to close to the entrance you can swap the end cap and reverse the tube and the nest is now further away from where they
enter.))

Since this nesting box seems to be working for you others may want to duplicate your efforts. You can make these tubes safer from raccoons or cats raiding the nest by drilling through the pipe about 10 inches (maybe more) back from the entrance hole and running a wire through the middle of the pipe either vertically or horizontally so that if a predator tries to reach in and pull the rug or mat out from under the nest the nest will hang up on the wire and the contents will remain out of reach. The swallows or bluebirds or other cavity nesters can hop over a horizontal protection wire or walk past a vertical wire that splits a 4" diameter pipe.

Keep close tabs on this effort and think about submitting what you see for publication in The Bluebird and share your efforts with Cornell. I would LOVE to see your ladder mounting system for this nestbox in photos:-)) I would not add the protection wire at this time.

These tubes up under the eaves of a house could probably be 30" long and be plenty long. You could get four of these out of a 10 foot length of drain pipe. I like the drain pipe that is black on the inside and has a white outer layer. (A white outer layer would be cooler if the sun can shine on
the pipe.) Again please keep the list posted! Keith Kridler

Keith,
Thanks for the extra tips on making this a successful nesting for the swallows. That's a good idea about putting a wire through the middle of the PVC later on to stop predation. I took some photos and will send you these photos of my weird looking nestbox. The NRWS were sitting on the telephone wire watching me take pictures. There was also a third swallow flying around...too bad it doesn't have a mate. I do have an extra 5' ladder! It definitely puts my 6' ladder out of commission for a few weeks but that's OK. When I slammed all this together, I didn't know if it was necessary or not, but I thought I'd try to get the PVC pipe as close to the furnace PVC to show them an alternate place to go.

For the next time, my husband and I thought we might try to screw the PVC pipe onto a tree with some bracing. I don't know if I could talk him into putting them under the eaves of his barn. I agree with you that it would be better to use the black interior, white exterior drain pipe for future nestboxes, too. If this one I put together gets too much sun and heat after the eggs have been laid, I think I will remove the black plastic bag I taped onto the tube to make it darker in there.

The female has slowed down on bringing in nesting material so hopefully she will be ready to start laying eggs although it will be a challenge to monitor inside the tube to find out how many eggs and how many hatch. I might just not monitor if it seems like I could damage anything in there.
There isn't much info on NRWS so I'm assuming they're like TRES in the number of eggs, incubation, etc.

Oxford, Michigan used to be known as the "Gravel Capitol of the World" and there are still many gravel pits around here although one of the biggest ones has been developed into ...you guessed it...a golf course with 1700 new homes, the Boulder Pointe Golf Club and Waterstone sub. Maybe the rough winged swallows ancestors came from around there.

Thanks for being interested in my endeavor. I will keep you and the list posted on their progress. This has been a neat experience.

Carol
Oxford, Michigan

From: kingston [mailto:kingston"at"cstone.net]
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 10:53 PM
Subject: Re: Return of the Rough Winged Swallows

The box being discussed is by Frank A. Zuern of Oshkosh, WI, He displayed and explained it at Boise in 1994; at the NABS Bluebird Conference. As for Bluebirds; I don't believe that it hasn't caught on very well around North America

http://audubon-omaha.org/bbbox/nestbox/pdf/Zuern_BlueBirdHouse[1].pdf

Ron Kingston Charlottesville VA

Thanks for the plans Ron. This type of nestbox might work out very well for rough winged swallows since they like a long tube nestbox. Seems like it would be a good predator deterrent also. Keith had mentioned something about the Zuern, but he didn't have the details on it, so thanks for researching the information.

Another pair of rough-winged swallows showed up today and they are fighting with the other pair over the 1st PVC pipe I put up, so this evening I quickly put out another 4' long piece of 4" diameter PVC pipe about 50' away from the 1st one. Both are about 75' from my house. This time I screwed the PVC pipe onto a 4' tall wooden sawhorse since I'm running out of ladders to put them on. It's not as high as the other one. I don't know how low they will tolerate a nesting pipe. I didn't see the 2nd pair come back this evening. There isn't much on the internet about this breed's nesting requirements so I'm just "winging" it.... no pun intended! Maybe the 2nd pair will take it, maybe not. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. If they decide to build a nest in it, I will work on the predation factor. They seem to build their nest at least 18" back into the pipe which should be out of the reach of a raccoon or cat.

Thanks again,
Carol

From: Dean Sheldon [mailto:seedbed"at"accnorwalk.com]
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2006 7:56 AM
Subject: Re: Return of the Rough Winged Swallows

The Amishmen in our area figured out how to make nesting structures out of newspaper delivery boxes [used for rural delivery of daily newspapers]. They attached a front [with entrance hole] to a tray which slipped in/out of the box. Lots of slots were already molded into the plastic rectangular boxes for ventilation. It looked like a perfect setup >>> but I never had a bird in any of the ones I put up experimentally. What I DID get was wasps which made their communal colonies inside the structures. This was, of course, unacceptable to the birds and to me. I believe that the wasps were attracted by the high heat inside the boxes. Rural mail carriers often run into wasp problems in mail boxes as they make their rounds during the late summer months.After an unsuccessful two seasons, I took the nesting structures down.
I am excited about your efforts and I applaud them. The purpose of this note is to pass on a word of CAUTION. Be on the lookout for wasps in/about the tubes which you have put in place. No point in getting injured/stung as a part of your worthy experimentation.
Dean Sheldon, VP/Ohio Blueird Society, Greenwich, OH

From: Keith & Sandy Kridler [mailto:txbluebirder"at"sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2006 8:02 AM
To: smokem"at"chartermi.net; kingston; bluebirds and cavity-nesting birds
Subject: Re: Return of the Rough Winged Swallows

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas a warm night with a low of 70*F heading to a high in upper 90's again our drought is unrelenting with water rationing becoming mandatory across the region in some water districts.

These Swallows tend to be colony nesters as several pairs (six or more) will nest within about fifty feet of each other. I will try to go get pictures and check to see if they nested this year as the business shut down where I used to buy lumber about 4 years ago and a plumbing supply just re-opened in the same building. They nested in the lumber racks behind the main back/west wall of the building.

If you look at Frank Zuern's nestbox that Ron Kingston looked up for us (Thanks Ron:-)) you see a style of nestbox that he based on old rotten tree limbs where the center of the limb rotted out and the birds would crawl back inside the natural hollow and depending on the length or depth of the natural limb they might or might not be safe from predators.

Like Ron said this nestbox has not gained a whole lot of popularity, It has a LOT of ventilation holes and between the vent holes and drain holes and vent slots over the front and back it has just under fourteen square inches of ventilation not counting the entrance hole.

Being such a long nestbox when the young get old enough to hop around they would have more than 50 square inches of floor space to exercise in. In this area it is common for bluebirds to build in postal mail boxes or plastic tubes for newspaper and you see them all sitting out near the door when they are older and when you stop to look in the box or the mail is delivered they hop back to the back of the box and hide, thus getting a LOT of exercise.

This nestbox style really could be used quite easily to rig as a hanging nestbox from the flat soffit area of your house or mounted to angle brackets to a wall of a barn, storage shed or the back eave of your garage. If you mounted the box to the wall of a building you could easily drill an entrance hole in one of the "sides" of this nestbox plan instead of one of the ends. I would design the nestbox so that a Van Ert Sparrow trap would install easily in it. :-)) I probably would dado vent slots at the tops of the sides and open a whole side up for cleaning rather than drill so many side vent holes.

For Carolina Wrens I would make the bottom of the box out of a 1X6 instead of the 1X4 and you could make the sides out of 1X8's as these birds like a little larger nesting area. They also like to nest around your garage or porch area. For the Rough Winged Swallows Frank's box would be about the perfect size. If you mounted it on a wall that had a roof overhang and kept the box down about 6 inches between the top of the box roof and the bottom of your building roof you just installed a nesting platform for Barn Swallows, Phoebes, Robins ETC. You would want the roof of Frank's nestbox to be flush with the back wall of the nestbox if you are mounting it to a wall. For the Rough Wings they would need an open area coming up to the box and have the entrance hole facing out from the wall.

Interesting how the birds like this style of nestbox for Donna in CT. My dad made a long nestbox similar to this when we lived in Ohio, back in the early 60's only he made it into a two compartment "wren" box which he hung up around the farm in the grape arbor, out buildings and such for the House Wrens. He made his from four pieces of 1X6 and hung it so that you had a steep roofed, diamond shaped nestbox and the wrens could fill up one compartment and nest in the other. Basically a back to back double nestbox with the holes facing in opposite directions.

Frank Zuern's nestbox would make a great nestbox to hang in the woods under a large tree limb for flying squirrels. You would probably want to make it a little longer for them and add an extra escape door (one near each end) if you have large climbing snakes in your area. KK

It appears that the original pair of northern rough-winged swallows have completed their nest. They appear to be quite territorial. Two more pairs have showed up and the original pair appear to have claimed a big part of the back yard (about a quarter-acre). They have aerial battles off and on all day. So I set up another 4" PVC pipe that is 4' long and screwed it on a 4' tall sawhorse. 1st day, I placed it 50' away, no luck...2nd day 75'
away opposite side of the yard...3rd day 28' away from the original pipe up against the side of the barn. They don't even seem to see it this 2nd pipe.
They seem to be fixated on that original PVC pipe and they all want it.
They swirl and dip and dive all around the hole. All this strife seems to
be impeding the original pair from laying eggs. They spend most of their time on the "look-out".

Today, I moved the sawhorse PVC pipe nest box to the rear of the barn where another pair wouldn't even be able to see the 1st pair. No luck so far...they're all still fixated around the 1st PVC pipe.

I guess I could make a third pipe nest box for the third pair but I don't know what good it would do.

I wish they spoke English. Then I could tell them, "Hey you guys...look
over here!!!"

Oh well,

Carol
Oxford, Michigan

I've read the thread on this list concerning rough-winged swallows, but don't recall ever having seen them myself. I do see TRES Violet-Green Swallows in my area every season. However, yesterday I took my house guests up to Mendocino, since it was 105 degrees here (it was 62 in Mendocino!)

We saw several birds flying as swallows do, right in the center of the town. However, they didn't have the forked tail I associated with the swallow family. We noticed under the porch roof of one of the shops mud nests, shaped like gourds, with baby birds peering out. There was a heap of droppings on the sidewalk! The parents continued to feed the chicks as the tourists strolled by within feet of them.

We checked my book when we returned back here and they were rough-winged swallows! Very pretty, very graceful, but terribly messy.

Barbara in Cloverdale, CA

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
Cliff Swallows look very similar to the Rough Winged but have a lighter colored Tan patch above the tail on the lower back when flying. They build a "Gourd" shaped mud nest under eaves or against walls. I was reading a report a couple of weeks ago where a Wisconsin man started with one pair of cliff swallows and over a ten year maybe longer period he had over 1,200 pairs nesting on the sides of his barns. Barn Swallows preferred to nest inside his barn when the Cliff Swallows preferred the exterior walls. He was writing the article trying to get more people to allow these swallows on their barns. He claimed that painted barns were hard for the birds to attach nests to. Of course this was back in 1940's.

He also claimed in the article that you needed to leave the old nests up over winter so that when the birds returned and they had a cold spell they would huddle together in the old nests. Then I believe in Early April in Wisconsin you needed to knock down all of the old nests, remove House Sparrows and allow the swallows to build new mud nests.

Interesting to hear of such dedicated people so long before "saving the world" became popular. KK

Do barn swallows also build the mud nests? My neighbor has what I assumed were barn swallows that have built their mud nests under the eaves of his house, above the garage for the third summer now. Maybe he has cliff swallows. Guess I should actually look w/ my binoculars.

Cindy Groene
South Lyon, MI

The Northern Rough Winged swallows that are hanging around my house have built a nest of straw, grass, and wood chips inside a 4' long PVC sewer pipe that is 4" in diameter. I don't know what is going on in there because the nest is 18-24" back. I don't know whether or not there are eggs but I believe it's the female that goes in and out several times a day. This is my first experience with this type of swallow but it seems to me that if there are eggs in there she'd have to stay on them all the time for them to hatch. We've been working in the yard nearby and maybe she feels uncomfortable being that close to humans but we have to get the work done and then we'll be out of their way. There were 2 other pairs hanging around disturbing the original pair but they seem to have left.
When I hear little "cheep-cheeps" in there, I'll let you know!
Carol
Oxford, Michigan

Hi Cindy,

Your neighbor probably has barn swallows. They are wonderful birds to watch
in the air.

Barn swallows:

Generally nest under eaves, porches and in open sheds or barns.
Make open cup-shaded nests out of mud lined with feathers.
Have forked tails.
Sometimes nest in colonies.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Barn_Swallow_dtl.html

Cliff swallows:

Generally nest under bridges or on cliffs.
Make closed dome-shaped nests out of mud.
Have square tails
Usually nest in colonies.

Great old print of both species

http://www.antiquemapsandprints.com/SCANSJ/j-22788.jpg

Felicia, Sykesville, MD

Thanks Felicia. It appears by the shape of the nest that these are cliff
swallows. The mud nest is nearly closed up except for a little hole they
peek out of. It's a small colony of only 3 or 4 nests.

Cindy
South Lyon, MI

Barn swallows build the mud nests that are under eaves as you describe. You can easily distinguish them by their distinctive tail which is what formal "swallow-tail" coats were named for. They are indigo above with a reddish breast.

Kate Arnold
Paris, Texas

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