Over the last few years my work place has only had one or two barn swallow nests. This year I have counted over 30 nest being constructed and more being made underneath the front overhang of my place of work. It’s a large overhang where you can have a car drive under to go into the building. The issue is that there is swarms of these swallows now and they have started to build on the out walls of the building since they have already covered the inside of the overhang. I have read the Ontario law and it says they are a threatened species. I am unsure of what to do, my boss is telling me to do something about it as we have children coming and going right underneath their nests. The swallows are becoming defensive as I think some may have laid eggs already. We can’t have any children getting harmed so I wanted some ideas on ways to get them to build their nest elsewhere, like do we need to have a special kind of nesting structure constructed for this? It’s getting out of control and their is also mud everywhere from their nests, I read it can contain dangerous bacteria, how true is that? The children we have coming are toddlers and preschoolers. I just need a way to help get the bird to build elsewhere, even if it’s next to the building, if I can’t get something to deal with this, I’m unsure of what my superiors will do, I know they tried power washing the starting foundation of nests before they where built. This was before we learned they are threatened. But now it’s getting drastic. I could not find any other subreddit that I could ask for help in. I need low cost effective solutions since it’s ran mainly by a board of people who don’t want to spend money.
Thank you for taking your time to read my slightly panicked and long post.
A pair of swallows built a nest under my eaves around a month ago, and there are at least three chicks in it. Today I was moving a flower pot that was directly underneath the nest (so that it wouldn't accumulate bird poo) and noticed that there is a swallow chick in it. It has not decomposed so it must have died recently, maybe it's still just alive. I'm not sure how it fell out, maybe it was pushed out by another chick? What's even stranger is that it is lying down in a neat little pit in the soil (about one, two inches deep) that seems to have been purposefully dug for it. What animal would have done that? Would the parent swallows intentionally "bury" a dead chick? I have three cats, so could they be at fault? I'm not sure if I should try to return it to the nest or leave it. I can link a picture if necessary
Over the last few years my work place has only had one or two barn swallow nests. This year I have counted over 30 nest being constructed and more being made underneath the front overhang of my place of work. It’s a large overhang where you can have a car drive under to go into the building. The issue is that there is swarms of these swallows now and they have started to build on the out walls of the building since they have already covered the inside of the overhang. I have read the Ontario law and it says they are a threatened species. I am unsure of what to do, my boss is telling me to do something about it as we have children coming and going right underneath their nests. The swallows are becoming defensive as I think some may have laid eggs already. We can’t have any children getting harmed so I wanted some ideas on ways to get them to build their nest elsewhere, like do we need to have a special kind of nesting structure constructed for this? It’s getting out of control and their is also mud everywhere from their nests, I read it can contain dangerous bacteria, how true is that? The children we have coming are toddlers and preschoolers. I just need a way to help get the bird to build elsewhere, even if it’s next to the building, if I can’t get something to deal with this, I’m unsure of what my superiors will do, I know they tried power washing the starting foundation of nests before they where built. This was before we learned they are threatened. But now it’s getting drastic. I could not find any other subreddit that I could ask for help in. I need low cost effective solutions since it’s ran mainly by a board of people who don’t want to spend money.
Thank you for taking your time to read my slightly panicked and long post.
