By Jim Heffernan
When we moved here in 1979, we had the good fortune to find an affordable old farmhouse just south of Tillamook town. It was the wide open vistas of the Coast Range that made us ignore the drawbacks of a 50 year old farmhouse.
It wasn’t until we lived here for a few months that we realized that we would also have front-row seats to the shows that dozens of bird species would perform for us.
The stars of it all was the tiny Barn Swallows that would come visiting in April, build or salvage their nests, and depart in August with their latest broods.
Our craftsman style house had just the right ledges for their nests and they didn’t mind our prying eyes.
In the months they were here they entertained us daily. One of their nests was above our dining room window. I never tired of the spectacle of one of them hurtling at window and pulling up at the last possible moment.
Whenever we would walk below their nests, they would buzz by our heads, maybe threatening us, maybe showing off. I just don’t know. They didn’t give the crows any slack either. Crows always seemed to have a trio of swallows that pestered them as they flew over.
Maybe I’m wrong, but they always seemed playful to me. One of the events we witnessed was the first flight of the fledglings. They would land on a deck rail or in the hedge and take a long pause, shaking their head at the novelty of being out of the nest. Soon, they would take flight again and dart in circles that grew wider and faster by the moment. Eventually, they would land in rows on the wires and sing in joy at their new found freedom.
Sometimes they would find a feather and several of them would pass it back and forth in mid air in what looked like a game of aerial soccer. The feather would eventually find its way to a new nest.
This year, the swallows are not here. In years past, I’ve counted as many as 30 perched on the wires that line the road. I’ve not seen any this year.
I find this a sorrowful metaphor for the cruelty of the times we’re in today. We cheerfully deport people to concentration camps because we can. We pointlessly dismantle features of our government dedicated to building the “common good” for all of us because we can.
There’s a certain poetry in calling a group of swallows “a richness of swallows.” I know richness is gone from my life without them.
