1000 purple martins or barn swallows?

[M.Stephens]

About 800 yards fromy colony I have been watching about a 1000 what look like purple martins with my binoculars. They are circling in a swarm over oak trees. Everytime I look I think they may be barn swallows , but I know what barn swallows look like and I know what purple martins look like. Could they be Sy's? Several of them have white underbellies. I tried playing my Martin chatter cd to see if that would draw them in but they're still out there flying around. I don't have tree swallows in this area. I guess at roost time I'll see if my numbers increase. For the last few days we've had real strong south winds blowing in.

[ron20m]

seems like barn swallows would be flying lower and not in big groups. Don't forget about cliff swallows too, they like colonies but I've never seen a thousand. Never heard of a thousand martins besides a roost either.

[Laverne]

Once I saw a flock of about 100 birds fly through here. I, too, believed they were Purple Martins, probably SY. They flew together and turned together - like they mirrored each others movements (like a school of fish). When I asked about it here on the Forum, nobody answered. So, I dropped it. I have never seen anything like it again.

I don't know what you're seeing and I don't know what I saw. But, I can tell you it doesn't happen very often and it could be one of those things that most people don't know about.

I like to think that it is a group of Sub-adult Purple Martins who have been together since they left here last Fall. Maybe they will slowly disperse and go their separate ways adding their numbers to multitudes of waiting colonies stretching across the breeding grounds...

I wish you could get a photo of that group. Maybe somebody else will have more to say on this topic.

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Chimney sweeps migrate thru about now, they look a litttle bit like a flying cigar, so they are smaller than a martin, but do look a bit like a martin

[flyin-lowe]

The barnies to me have a more distinctive V in their tail.

[M.Stephens]

May not be a thousand but a large amount. I saw barn swallows mixed in. A group of them flew over and my son said he thought they looked smaller than the martins. Any ideas? They fly identical to purple martins. They swoop and dive like martins. I've never seen them before.

[M.Stephens]

They are not barn swallows or chimney swifts . I saw a flock of swifts yesterday.

[Laverne]

Yeah, I've been seeing and hearing the Chimney Swifts. The same for barnies and cliff or bridge swallows.

What I saw several years ago was none of these. The birds looked exactly like SY Purple Martins. They just weren't behaving like normal PMs.

If any of y'all ever see anything like this again - try to get a photo of it. Hope you all are enjoying your season.

[lcline85]

are you absolutely sure they are not starlings? I have seen very large groups of starlings before, thousands of them feeding, flying and just gereally hanging out. Alot of other species will join a mixed flock with starlings.

besides that it would be a very cool sight if they were martins, or another type of swallow. Please post pics if you manage to get them!

[M.Stephens]

These are not starlings.

If it weren't for the storms today and them being 800 yds. away across two fenced pastures I would've gotten on my 4 wheeler and road down there to get a closer look.

When they flew over my house my martins were mixed in with them. I said to my son "those are martins". He said "Dad they're smaller than your martins". I didn't get to look at them much longer.

My camera is just a small inexpensive camera and wouldn't do any good to take pictures.

[Matt F.]

I like to think that it is a group of Sub-adult Purple Martins who have been together since they left here last Fall. Maybe they will slowly disperse and go their separate ways adding their numbers to multitudes of waiting colonies stretching across the breeding grounds

Interesting theory Laverne.
You may be right on the money.

[John Barrow]

We saw a huge wave of mixed swallows swarming overhead just before dark this evening. I thought the SYs had finally arrived in mass, They are travelling very fast and grouped together in a wave headed north. A large group circled back over us and there were no purple martins--probably mostly barn swallows. Radar indicates huge migration of migrants into the USA that began this last Friday, and I believe we will see huge arrivals of SYs along the coast beginning late tomorrow or Tuesday. People along the coast can likely see large waves of mixed swallows, incliuding purple martins, during the coming week.

[Brad-AL]

They are probably Tree Swallows. They don't nest in your area, but they would have to pass through there to nest further north. That's the only swallow I've ever seen in a loose flock that large.

[M.Stephens]

Brad it may be tree swallows. I've never seen one before so I'm not sure what tree swallows look like flying in groups. They are probably just migrating through my area. Thanks everyone for your replies. If I see them again this evening I'll try to get a closer look. : )

[KathyF]

Yesterday afternoon, while watching the storms come in from the Southwest, we also observed about 30 of our martins hovering & drifting on the wind that was coming from the south east.

They would drift to & fro, dive down around the housing, then go back to the west & drift in again. When they went back up on one pass, a huge flock of chattering birds came flying right up to them from the south east. The flock was over 100 birds strong. They flew right up to the martins and turned around to face into the wind coming from the south east (the direction the wind was coming from) and drifted with the martins. I verified with binoculars that they were tree swallows.

We already have 10 pair of tree swallows building nests here, so I was a bit surprised to see so many in a large flock coming in. They drifted around with the martins until the storms arrived with lightning, then they all disbursed (as did I ). Very, very cool!!

I had to change my lens on my camera and get a card, so they had drifted kind of far away by the time I got back - but here are a couple of shots (sorry for poor quality). You may have to enlarge to see all of them.

http://i524.photobucket.com/albums/cc33 ... G_5463.jpg

http://i524.photobucket.com/albums/cc33 ... G_5459.jpg

[Laverne]

Thanks for the pictures, Kathy. Your verification helps a lot.

Tree Swallows could be the answer for me as well. I am completely unfamiliar with Tree Swallows. When they are migrating in groups do they mirror each others actions and move as a unit?

I've seen a Purple Martin Roost many times and even then the PMs fly independently of each other. At the end, as they descend into the roost, they all move at the same time, but they never remind me of a school of fish.

Sorry for the continuing questions. I guess it's because we know so little about Tree Swallows and they look so much like Purple Martins.

[KathyF]

Laverne, I would have responded to your post if I had seen it.

I can only tell you what I have observed about migrating tree swallows for the 2x I've seen a large herd like this together (and yes, I've seen a martin roost too, so I know of what you're describing).
Yes, they stick together in a loose flock and move somewhat together but not near as sychronized as the fish groups.

In my opinion though, they don't move together as well as starlings do (as much as I hate them, they are really syncrhonized when they're flying together).

They were so cute last night when they approached the martins - they were just chattering away, as if to say, "hey, it's our big cousins - check out the storms coming in!!". Hubby likened it to this huge wave (the TRES) crashing upon the beach (the flock of martins). They all scattered momentarily, then seemed to hear a marching order to LINE UP and blended with the martins.

If I hadn't been outside and watching at that very moment, I would have missed an incredible sight! Same thing happend to me a couple of years ago. I happened to be outside early in the season - March maybe, and was observing my 10 martins that had returned. All of a sudden my martins started what I call their "greeting" chirps and they all excitedly flew up to a large flock of birds that were silently drifting north on a strong southerly wind. The drifting flock consisted of roughly 75 - 100 purple martins. Some of them came down to visit *my* martins, but left rather quickly to rejoin their pack and continued drifting from east to west, but consistently & slowly northward. Ranks right up there with "coolest things I've ever seen in my life".

[scottfreidhof]

A flock of about 3 million tree swallows was observed in Florida during the Great Backyard Bird Count in late February. See the link below. I've seen large mixed flocks of swallows during migration here in Kentucky on several occasions, both spring and fall. Whether they be swallows or waterfowl, large flocks of migrating birds are mesmerizing!

http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/science- ... 12Summary/

[M.Stephens]

Scott after looking at these videos I now believe they were a mixed flock of tree swallows and barn swalllows. I have never seen the tree swallow, but now I believe that is what I saw. Thanks again everyone for helping me identify these birds.

[Allan Day]

I've seen migrating Martins only one time.
Several years I was doing Spring clean up in my yard, eagerly awaiting the return of the "bulk" of my Martins.
I noticed what looked like a vortex of over a thousand birds. The "Martin tornado" was moving slowly across the water that I live on. There is a roost near my home, I've seen large amounts of birds before, so I am not exaggerating.
The birds approached my home, I excitedly ran in and told my wife that "we've hit the mother load." I turned on the Dawnsong and cranked it from my outdoor speakers. The yard filled with a diving and circling cloud of Martins for about 10 minutes. The slow vortex continued North and I didn't pick up even a single bird!

This is a true story, so to answer your question, those could be Martin's.