By this time of year things are usually dried and yellow.  Not this year.  This year things are lush.

Every time I go to Farmington Bay I find something fun.  In my last trip I found a kingbird nest.  I haven’t seen a new bird in awhile, but I can find half of the birds in Utah at Farmington Bay.  In this post I want to focus on the Barn Swallow.  Here’s one that was singing.

There are many ways to distinguish between swallow species.  For example, coloring.  But the tail is also a helpful indicator, especially when they’re flying.  Barn Swallows have forked tails.

In the summer, you can see so many swallows flying around at Farmington Bay that it looks like a plague of locusts descending on the crops.  This picture doesn’t even show all the swallows because I don’t have a panoramic lens.

If you’re looking at nests, swallows build their nests out of mud.  But Barn Swallows build them in a cup shape.  So while both species will build under the eaves, the Barn Swallows will look for a platform for the nest.  Like this:

Also, baby Barn Swallows look particularly pissed off.

Below is a Cliff Swallow nest for comparison.  The nest was under the eave of a barn.

Here are some others on a boathouse.

I see swallows occasionally when I bike home.  There is a river running along 900 S, so the swallows will eat insects around the river.  We talk about moving sometimes, maybe I should advocate for a house near the river.

Can you see how the heat warps the picture in the distance?  I’m going to learn a lot this summer about how to take pictures in extreme heat.  The birds were feeling the heat too.  Check out this poor Marsh Wren.

and these sad barn swallows

the real treat of the day was to see White Pelicans.  My love of Brown Pelicans is well established.  And now I’ve seen the other type of pelican to live in the US.

Isn’t he breathtaking?  The black tips are so cool.  These guys are shyer than their brown counterparts.  Of course, the Brown Pelicans hang out on piers with people all day.  Here the pelicans are more isolated from humans.

There was a point where I was taking pictures of small birds like wrens and then I saw this giant body in the water.  At first I thought I was looking at the Lock Ness Monster.  No!  It was a pelican fishing.

He may look small in that picture, but in my 500mm lens, he was huge!  Isn’t it neat how the black feathers are almost completely tucked inside his wings?

Montanagirl has an interesting post that shows White Pelicans in flight with cormorants so you can get a feel for the size differences.

Barn Swallows are best distinguished by the tail feathers, which look like little pincers.  I always think of earwigs when I look at their tail feathers.  Both Barn Swallows and Cliff Swallows make nests out of mud, but the Cliff Swallows make nests that look more like gourds.  This isn’t the best shot because you can’t see the opening, but it shows you the mud aspect.  I have a better shot in this post.

Here is a Cliff Swallow that we saw in Layton.  His chest has a lot more bronze than a Barn Swallow.

This is a much better picture of the Cliff Swallow where you can see his white neck band.  (photo by Jon)

Below is a Tree Swallow on the left and another type of swallow on the right, possibly a Bank Swallow.  The distinguishing mark for a Tree Swallow is the white feathers below the beak.  This picture was taken at Farmington Bay.

Below is a group of Bank Swallows flying in and out of their nests.  All the black spots are birds or nests.  This was taken at Deseret Ranch.

The pictures taken above were captured because the swallows were nesting and closely watching humans move near their nests.  Last July when we visited Utah for the first time, there was a stream that was covered in swallows.  I couldn’t get a picture because they moved so fast.  Now that I’m using a better base, I’m determined to get some amazing pictures.