Lake Umbagog
1909.
June 8 [June 8, 1909]
  Brilliantly clear with fresh N.W. wind; calm at morning
and evening. Heavy, killing frost last night. Early morning very cool.
  When I first visited my boat house on June 3 the
Eave Swallows were only beginning the foundations of their
nests. On the 6th none of the nests were more than one half
built. To-day a dozen or more are apparently completed,
at least externally. This morning as I was watching the
birds I saw two come together in the air and whirl
around and around straight down to the ground, where
they remained for considerably more than a minute in what
I took to be sexual union, waving and fluttering their wings
like butterflies. The other members of the colony seemed
to be actively interested in the affair and to be not a little
excited by it for they collected over the prostrate birds
and dashed down almost to them with loud cries. When
the pair finally separated one bird flew off in one
direction the other in another. I do not think it would
have been a fight for Eave Swallows are among the most
peaceful and social of all birds and I have never known
them show the slightest tendency to quarrel. Moreover I
have seen Swifts copulate in precisely the same way
although they do not often if ever remain so long on the
ground together. The Swallows in this colony do not seem
to be in the least disturbed by the dozen or more
Bronzed Grackles which are nesting in same balsams that
partially shade the boat house nor do they pay the
least attention to the Broad-winged Hawks which
the Grackles mob every time they appear near the
island.
Eave
Swallows
Sexual
contact(?)
in mid
air
On friendly
terms with
Crow Blackbirds
&
Broad wing
Hawk