Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Barn Swallows

I try to find time to run a rotary mower after the cattle have grazed a pasture to control brush and weeds.

I have company as the Swallows know this stirs up the grasshoppers and other bugs out there, and there is feast to be had by catching them on the wing. It's like a squadron of little fighter planes escorting a bomber (my tractor/mower) in enemy territory.

I used to be mad at the birds for crapping on machinery in the shed, but after seeing their aerial acrobatics I give them a pass.

And I remember my Dad saying he enjoyed the "company" when he was out running a tractor.

I work at a Golf Course mowing the roughs with a J/D tractor with Wessex mower behind it and have thing happen to me.
They dive bomb any insects that get up in front of the mower. Those birds sure do have some moves.

Smaller scale. I look out when the mules are in the pasture.They have birds sitting on their backs waiting for bugs to jump out while the mules graze

Yup, the swoop about a fourwheeler, as they did when I road horse.

Even critters with bird brains can be pretty smart, eh?

Have seen gulls in a freshly turned field going after worms, all sorts of different birds following combines and swathers.

Keep the lawn mowed around the house and garage but mow the entire parcel around the middle of June to let the local 'yotes, owls and hawks get at the rodents. Surrounding fields grow tall by then and I put the 72" rotary cutter on the JD tractor for a couple days to complete the job. As the cut areas grow larger and the uncut areas smaller, the local red tailed hawk and a couple ravens always shadow me as the plump meadow vols run out of the tall grass in front of the tractor. The barn and martin swallows also join the feast, cutting through the flying insects around the moving implements. That old red tail has gotten use to me over the years and I'll idle the tractor down as he hops around on the cut grass just in front of me if'n he misses on his first strike as the intended vol zigs and zags under the layer of cut grass. He usually gets 'em on the first or second try. Watched him kill 13 last year and just half that this year. As stated above, good company....

I do the same after rotating off a pasture as well as a few roadsides on my land, inside/outside fence lines, around pond, behind local church, etc.....aside from the pastures none are big areas but I'm doing it often. I LOVE watching the swallows.

We'll sit on the porch in the evenings and watch them around the pond and over the pastures. Fun to watch the entire show sitting on the porch but if you focus on one and try to follow it alone it can be really crazy.....man they can move.

I see them often while shredding.

Lots of birds follow me around when shredding... swallows, crested egrets (they love grasshoppers and small frogs), hawks, and caracaras as well.

Buzzards when I run over a skunk, possum, or coon, and sometimes a snake. Those caracaras love snakes too. They fight the buzzards for them.

Hawks will see me shredding and sit in a nearby tree waiting on the tractor to flush a rat or cottontail.

They are great entertainment.

Spring migration.