Swallows are the most impressive flyers on the planet.
When I watch swallows fly, I am certain they inspired designs for fighter planes and I hear Hollywood vrrooom and rrrreooow sounds as they bank, plummet, and turn. Happily, swallows do not wage war on civilization as we know it, but on the mosquitos and other flying insects that would otherwise annoy me as I enjoy the show.
In preparing to write about swallows, I did some googling for scientific estimates of swallow speed or impressive comparisons to human speeds. But what I found was hundreds of people amusing themselves with references to a Monty Python Holy Grail bit about the landspeed of laden and unladen swallows. So in the end, I can only tell you that one of the more serious of these people thinks an unladen swallow can hit speeds up to 24 mph.
I say this: If you compare a swallow to a car and adjust 24 mph by the general mass by which the car eclipses the swallow, you can get an idea of how fast the swallow is going by bird standards (really really fast!) and how immediately and horribly crushing it would be for the swallow to hit a tree at that speed.
(Math stopped being my strong point in tenth grade, or I would concoct an equation and add to the many silly google pages about swallow speed.)
I don’t know where the swallows went for the winter, but as spring arrived, I had been scoping out my favorite lake for their return. Finally, on May 2, they arrived.
I spent quite a few afternoons trying for a good photo, but they’re too fast, and my pocket camera completely unfit for the task. So I offer you a video and a few photos of Maryland swallows so you can get the general idea. As always, you can click the photo to see a larger version.
(The Maryland swallows strafed me for hanging out too close to their nest!)
Swallows at my lake:
Missed it!
Rrreooow
Incoming!
Giving me the stink eye
