Small Birds in Lancaster County Barnyards

     Permanent resident house sparrows and summering barn swallows are interesting species of small birds that adapted to Lancaster County barnyards.  Both kinds of these small birds nest in loose colonies; safety in numbers.  Most every farm has populations of each species, making them abundant throughout the summer in this county's farmland. 
     Both these species of birds raise young in the barns and other buildings in the barnyards, but in different niches and using different materials, eliminating competition between them.  The sparrows, which are weaver finches from Eurasia and Africa, stuff grass and straw into protective crevices in those buildings where their four or five eggs and young are safe from weather and predation, except black rat snakes, long-tailed weasels and brown rats.  Some adult sparrows are caught by American kestrels and Cooper's hawks.
     House sparrow relatives in Africa build giant, colonial nests of grass in trees.  But the Eurasian house sparrows long ago adapted to nesting in protective buildings in Europe and Asia, and are now also very successful in the United States to this day.  Another reason for their success is that each pair will attempt to raise two or three broods of babies each summer.
     House sparrows feed mostly on grain, weed seeds and grass seeds across the barnyard, in fields and along roadsides.  Each pair feeds their youngsters a mixture of seeds and small invertebrates while in their nests and for a few days after they fledge from those grassy cradles. 
     House sparrows are handsome birds in a plain, camouflaged way.  Females are light-brown all over with dark streaking on their upper parts.  Males are feathered the same way, except they have a black bib under their beak and a gray top of their head. 
     The fast-flying barn swallows are entertaining to watch zipping far out and over the fields, meadows, ponds and other environments in pursuit of flying insects.  Their deep-purple upper parts and orange bellies alternately flash beautifully as the swallows turn this way and that after prey.
     By early May, barn swallows make nurseries of mud pellets they gather from the edges of puddles and streams.  They plaster those pellets, one by one, to the sides of support beams in barns and under bridges in farm country where there are a lot of flies to eat.  Each female swallow lays four or five eggs in her mud pellet cradle and she and her mate feed the resulting offspring flying insects.  By the end of June, the young swallows are flying around and catching their own insects to eat.
     Barn swallows originally reared young in small, shallow caves across North America.  These swallows are more common today than they ever were before the coming of European farmers to this continent because there are many more barns than there are caves.
     During August, barn swallows gather into flocks that catch flying insects by day, and roost overnight in cattail and phragmities marshes, and corn fields.  The swallows feed heavily on insects in preparation for drifting south to escape the northern winter when flying insects are not available.  Those great groups of swallows are exciting to watch careening over the landscape after insects, and fluttering into protection vegetation at sunset to spend the night. 
     House sparrows, however, spend their lives in just a few acres around barnyards and surrounding fields and roadsides.  Through the winter their diet is restricted to weed seeds, grass seeds and grain stored in barns. 
     When in Lancaster County farmland, look for these abundant, small birds that are entertaining to experience.  They are common here because they have adapted to human-made niches, including nesting sites and food sources.