If you asked me that types of birds I expected to see along Joe Overstreet Road in Osceola County on the first day of September, I would not have guessed Barn Swallows. Yet there were dozens and dozens and dozens of them.
I suppose I should not have been surprised. A lot of birders are saying that the migration season has started a little early, and that would mean it’s time for Barn Swallows to start heading south to Mexico and Central America. AllAboutBirds.org, notes they breed throughout the Northern Hemisphere and then spend winters in much of the Southern Hemisphere.
I had so much fun (and some frustration, too) learning to take pictures of the quick-darting Barn Swallows early in the summer when they arrived at Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive. But on a cloudy Sunday morning, Joe Overstreet turned into Birding Easy Street for me. There were so many of the little birds sitting on barbed-wire fences or powerlines, there was no need to try to photograph them in flight. (And the light was too poor for that anyway.)
The great thing about seeing so many at once was being able to record how varied their appearance can be. AllAboutBirds.org notes that their “underparts vary from pale cinnamon or tawny to bright cinnamon.” I even saw some with white bellies, which be another version of the swallows.
If this is the last time seeing Barn Swallows until they migrate back here next summer, it was a really great goodbye.
