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Swallows diving under water?! (1 Viewer)

Fozzybear

Fozzybear

Ich bin ein Vogelbeobachter
I've just got back from a week in North Norfolk and when I was at Cley I saw something I'd never seen before - leaving the Bishops hide I saw Swallows zooming around low over the side pool next to the track but then one disappeared into the water with a splash. I looked and couldn't see it, worrying it was a young bird that had misjudged a drinking dip. Then I saw a bird emerge from the water a short distance away. It flew off and then I saw a swallow dive into the water and come up a few feet away and then fly to a wooden structure on the side of the pool and perch there near another swallow. It then flew up and mated with this swallow and then flew down and dipped into the water repeatedly splashing up water (see photo) before returning to the wooden structure and perching there.

I didn't have time to ask at the visitor centre but a birder I told in one of the hides had never heard of it. Is this known behaviour amongst Swallows or am I losing my marbles?!
 

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Certainly seen them 'plunge-diving' before, in the pond in the garden in France, as well as here in the uk. Assumed it was an extreme form of 'bathing'. Occurs to me it might also help dislodge parasites, but that's only a guess. Hadn't seen them actually submerge to the extent that they popped up elsewhere on the surface, mind, but I guess that could happen. (Might also have been a contributory factor in the myth that they hibernated in the bottom of ponds before migration was 'discovered'???)

Those marbles are fairly safe IMO, as long as you didn't see them catching 3 pound carp too ... ;)
 
Interesting - I wondered if the bird was a male showing off to the female since he dove fully then went and mated with her, a show of strength type of thing perhaps.
 
Very cool Fozzybear, that's something I've never seen or heard of before and we have absolute heaps of swallows here. Thanks for the post.
 
Thanks Longbow - I really wish someone else had been there to see it. I'd certainly never heard of it before.

Brian: that's the behaviour I saw later after they'd mated, the normal shallow dipping into the water.
 
Interesting, Paul.
I'll have a look at the video when I get home, thanks for posting & welcome to BF, Brianman1950.
 
I have seen the behaviour on the odd occasion. I think they do it for one of two reasons either to clean their feathers or alternatively to soak water into the feathers to aid cooling the bird or to take water to allow chicks to have a drink.

CB
 
Hi all,
I saw this behavior for the first time, I didn't care about swallows in the past...
When I saw this behavior, I thought that the young swallow dived into the water by mistake, when he want to drink water of pond.
But I realized the swallow dive into the water on purpose, because the same swallow dirinks water well.
The following is the movie of the swallow dirinking water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh5pitdglM8
 
I've seen the diving thing once, and was baffled by it. I don't think it does it to feed its offspring as I saw it happen in spring, out of the breeding season. I think it does it too cool off.
 
I've always taken it as a method of bathing or cooling off. I've never seen swallows do it but I've seen wattlebirds do it, which was quite amazing, our neighbour had a swimming pool that was used as more of a pond, and it would dive in, fly up to the tree, shake off before diving in again.
 
I have always believed that when Swallows appear to be scooping up water from the surface of a pond or river, they are actually catching insects. These insects are in the process of, or have hatched out and will be in or under the surface film, or resting on the surface. Since Swallows feed almost exclusively on insects they have no need to drink, getting all the liquids they need from their food. If you watch carefully you will see that they are feeding in this manner time and time again. The insects they are catching are tiny, too small to be seen by us, unless at very close range, and will consist of mayflies, mosquitos and their larvae. If they were taking in water, they would be doing so far more than necessary. On occasion too, they may be wetting their feathers, for the same reason as many other birds bathe in a puddle (Swallows are not suited to life on the ground) namely to rid their feathers of parasites.

In a way this behaviour is similar to birds such as Black-headed and Little Gulls "pond dipping". They too are picking up insects from the water surface.
 
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