An entry on the Daybreak newsletter disturbed me. It read:

You may have noticed swallows that have nested under the bridges on 11400 S. The Association has looked into these particular birds and they are federally protected species of bird and we are not able to tamper with the nests until after they migrate this fall. Once the birds have migrated we will go through the area and clean up their nests.

It surprised me that they didn’t mention the BEST reason to have cliff swallows inhabiting Daybreak. Each swallow eats close to THREE pounds of mosquitoes every day. Rather than trying to get rid of the birds, we should be encouraging them to stay here because there is a lot of water for mosquitoes to breed on Oquirrh Lake. Cliff swallows might make unsightly nests under the bridge, but I’d much rather deal with that and bird droppings than to have to constantly fight swarms of mosquitoes with every walk around the lake.

Almost a week ago, Mike and I took photos and some video of The Swallows of Daybreak. Here’s what we saw.

Here is some video:

After seeing the swallows face to face and knowing what they can do to make Daybreak a better place, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to remove their nests, no matter how they look. If you would like to learn more about cliff swallows, here are a couple of links:

• Cliff Swallow – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Don’t be a Hoser: The Swallows of California « The blog of Keith Hansen