The Swallow (House Martin, Swift, Starling )
Often called The Welcome Swallow, this tiny bird is often the source of many complaints and concerns to our support desk at Birds Off. Perhaps the not so welcome Swallow, loves to build its mud nest under the eaves of homes, along the veranda is and in sheds and carports. The resulting mess from this nest site is often too much for some house proud people. The process of making these mud nests also causes much stress to property owners as the birds fly in and out of the area carrying small tweaks and mud in order to build their nests. This causes further damage and discomfort for the owners.
The Barn Swallow is also another common name for this bird with good reason bring that they love to live and nest inside shaded darker areas. It is an uncommon visitor to parts of northern Australia but is wide spread across most southern parts.
It can be distinguished from the Welcome Swallow by its black breast band and white underparts. Other swallow species include the White-backed Swallow, which has a white back and grey white head, and the Red-rumped Swallow, which is a rare visitor to Australia’s north and has a red rump and streaked, chestnut underparts. Swallows are also confused with the Martins, of which there are two species in Australia. Both species have shorter, more square tails, and white to buff rumps but have similar habits to the Swallow.
Swifts (Family Apodidae) are similar in habits and appearance to the swallows, but have longer and more curved wings and differences in their flight. Swifts are rarely seen landing, while swallows are a common sight on wires, posts and other suitable perches. For all intents purpose of this book we will group these birds altogether because they have very similar reading, characteristics, mating patterns.
They are one of the smallest and fastest birds around and often fly in large groups of 15 to 20 birds at a time. Outside the nesting season the birds can congregate in large numbers that often exceed 100 birds at a time. Inside the nesting season often these birds will pair up with a partner and build a nest together many nests can be built in the same immediate area since the birds are not of the territorial type of nature. It is not uncommon to see up to 10 to 12 different nests in the one shed or industrial warehouse.
It is important to deter these birds before they start the mud nesting process. As determined as the magpie is to protect their nests, these types of birds are extremely tenacious in building their nests. We hear from many customers that have tried to deter them building nests by putting up nesting, bright lights, fans, loud noises, visual decoys.
If these birds are in the nest building stage nothing except the most powerful bird deterrent will stop them from nesting at this time. Because these birds are naturally hunted by other birds such as the Owl or the Hawk, Falcon, these birds are easily distracted and deterred by visual decoys providing it is the right time of year and not around nest building time.
These birds particularly like to descend on an area at dusk to roost for the night during the off meeting/nesting season. It is therefore quite easy to deter them during daylight hours.
The great news about this bird is it is easy to deter. Birds Off Gel is extremely effective in deterring these birds from roosting or nesting in any areas they decide to land. No matter if it is during nest building or roosting season these birds can be to deterred very effectively with a small amount of Birds Off Gel. Outside nesting season visual decoys can be used to great effect at the entrance to houses, sheds, barnes, warehouses.
For more details, go to our online store and purchase the How to Scare Birds Manual , 68 page book that covers all details of this and 20 other breeds.