Site surveying

Over the last two days, Hakan and I have gone around the towns of Bogazkent and Karadyi looking for barn swallow nests. We usually go about this by wandering around town and poking our heads into garages and abandoned buildings. When someone inevitably turns up to ask the natural question, "Uh...what are you doing?" I say hello (Merhaba) and defer to Hakan, who will go into a long explanation in Turkish wherein I recognize a few words--"Amerikali," "Matt," "Colorado," and "Kirlangic," which means barn swallow. I just stand there, like a dog, understanding 1 word out of 20, looking between the people speaking and nodding my head expectantly. Then, the person will sometimes shake my hand and show us into a garage or carport, and say some more things I don't understand and laugh, to which I smile and follow along.

We have had pretty good luck so far, mapping out forty or so sites with the GPS and taking note of whether we've seen birds in the area or if there was new mud on an old nest. Male barn swallows return from migration earlier than females in order to locate and defend existing nests or build new ones. So far, it seems there are few females around, although we found one full clutch of 5 eggs and another nest with 3 at one garage in Bogazkent, as well as one nest with 4 eggs in an apartment stairwell in Karadyi. Fortunately, most of the nests don't even have the feather linings that usually precede egg laying, so hopefully we still have some time to get set up and start banding birds before the main onset of breeding. Right now or plan is to do one survey in the morning and another in the evening. Yesterday, during our evening circuit around a Bogazkent neighborhood, a group of kids decided to follow us as we slinked around barn doors and scrambled on top of tractors to peer into dark nests with a flashlight and extendible automotive mirror. I imagine it was a pretty interesting experience for them. One of the boys seemed particularly impressed, or at least confused about how to respond, since he gave me a short bow when we climbed back in the car to head to another area. Tonight we will survey some more of Bogazkent, and maybe try to band a few birds. I am eager to get birds banded and start recording.

-Matt