San Juan Capistrano : Two-Week Festival to Mark Swallows’ Return

Back in the old days, the return of the swallows to Mission San Juan Capistrano was marked by a short and simple five-day celebration before, during and after March 19, the traditional date for the birds to arrive from their wintering grounds in Argentina.

Last year, according to Mike Henley, San Juan Capistrano’s community services supervisor, things got a little bit out of hand.

“The fiesta went on for three whole weeks,” Henley said. “It was partly because we were also celebrating the city’s 25th anniversary. But even so, a lot of people thought three weeks was just too long.”

So this year, the San Juan Heritage Festival will be trimmed to two weeks, starting today with the El Presidente Ball at 6 p.m. in the El Adobe Restaurant.

On Saturday there will be a 10-kilometer run and a 3-kilometer walk, followed by a community fair at C. Russell Cook Park, which will include a joint presentation by the Capistrano Indian Council, the city’s Arts and Heritage Commission and Los Rios Revue.

Tours, softball games and other events will lead up to Thursday, St. Joseph’s Day and the day on which, by long-standing tradition, the swallows return to build their mud nests and snap insects out of the air until October, when they head south again.

As usual, there will be special ceremonies on the grounds and around the ruins of the Old Mission, whose gates will open at 7:30 a.m. and whose ancient bells will toll when the first swallows are sighted.

And, as usual, there will be automobiles and buses ferrying visitors who will strain for a glimpse of a swallow--a cliff swallow with a squared-off tail, not a barn swallow with a long, forked tail. And they are not to be confused with the sparrows (which they resemble in size only), pigeons, linnets or even gulls, which also are seen frequently around town.

Before the festival ends on March 28 with a polo match at the Sycamore Trails Stables, there will be a pancake breakfast, a parade and a rodeo on March 21.

The rodeo, sponsored by the Lions Club, also will be held March 22, in the field at the corner of Junipero Serra and Camino Capistrano on the north edge of town.