I just talked with Brad Sparks, who within the past few days was driving
from Columbus down to Chillicothe on Rte 23, and just for kicks took the
side road next to 23 along the road past Charlie's Pond. This just
happened to coincide with a similar date Laura and I went this way on
7/20/2011, and Tim and Laura Dornan happened to take a couple days
earlier. All our experiences were similar: 10,000-plus bank swallows
perched on wires, or sunning themselves along the pavement, in a
one-mile stretch of this quiet roadway. A lot of the birds on the road
itself were lying flat on the blacktop, and we all thought they were
ridding themselves of parasites acquired during the nesting
season--because of the road surface's heat and petrochemical
exhalations--before migration.
        It seems this is a yearly spectacle. Probably there are numerous
quarries and aggregate industrial sites in the region along the Scioto
River, where this species can establish nesting colonies, and their
migratory flocks make use of this quiet area to assemble for their
migrations to South America. Records from the past indicate that far
larger numbers used to gather like this in northwest Ohio, but I haven't
heard much about them recently. It's definitely a spectacle worth
looking for in appropriate spots elsewhere in the state just now.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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