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Torpid
swallow |
11.09.1999
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Ó
Michael Woods |
I drove my lawn mower into
the old stable where it is kept, shut off the engine and was
clearing up, when I heard a fluttering and looked up to
glimpse an animal, a bat as I thought, disappearing through
the door. Intrigued, I examined the nooks and crannies for
its companions.
Eventually I noticed
another animal clinging to a wall just above head-height. I
was amazed to discover it was a young swallow, clearly not
long out of the nest. Its tail was spread and pressed flat
against the wall for support and the only movement was a
slow heaving of the body, as if it was drawing deep breaths.
Extraordinarily, neither the noise of the mower nor my
rattling of fuel cans had disturbed it. I spent a minute or
so examining the still motionless bird at close quarter
until it slowly roused itself and flew away.
The swallow seemed to be
in a state of torpor, as presumably the other one had been.
The weather was cool with intermittent rain, conditions in
which young, inexperienced swallows would have difficulty
finding food and might try to 'switch off' to save energy. I
have not been able to find any records of swallows becoming
torpid, although it is known that captive swallows can drop
their body temperatures by several degrees. My
interpretation is that these swallows had done just this and
they were unable to escape my noisy intrusion until they had
warmed up again.
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