Festival Goes On, Even if Swallows Don’t Show
The stars of the show are likely to be absent today when the Return of the Swallows Festival gets underway.
But that won’t keep thousands of tourists and locals from crowding into Mission San Juan Capistrano to take part in the quaint myth that puts this community on the map.
Efforts to lure the swallows back with everything from their favorite snack--ladybugs--to mud nests have met with only marginal success. The number of swallows migrating back to the mission has continued to dwindle in recent years.
It’s not something that city officials, residents and mission officials are proud to play up. But this year, they are trying to strike a better balance between highlighting the swallows’ return and other local events.
“There’s more to this wonderful city than birds,” said Gerald Miller, Mission San Juan Capistrano administrator.
For the anticipated 20,000 guests, there will be food, music, arts and crafts and parades.
Legend has long had it that the swallows return, as if on cue, at this time every year from Goya, Argentina, and take up residence in their upside-down nests. As recently as 1997, they followed that pattern as they had for hundreds of years.
But years of urbanization have reduced their numbers. Repair work at the old Great Stone Church, one of their nesting sites, also has spooked them.
“Most birders snicker at the whole story. There isn’t one who isn’t aware that it’s kind of a fraud--that there’s almost no swallows in Capistrano anymore,” said Sylvia Gallagher, a bird expert for the Sea and Sage Audubon in Irvine and author of the Atlas of Breeding Birds in Orange County. “It’s a tradition. . . . People go there wanting to see a swallow, so anything they see they call a swallow, and they go home happy.”
The city hasn’t given up trying.
In addition to the ladybugs and the fake nests, the city has avoided development in certain areas that the swallows favor. But the reality is that as south Orange County becomes more developed, the swallows will go elsewhere, said Councilman David Swerdling.
“The city has a concern for the swallows. We’ll always promote the swallows’ returning, because there will always be a number who will return,” Swerdling said. “But there’s an ambience of lifestyle here, a rich history the city has also always wanted to promote.”
New Orleans-born crooner Leon Rene gave San Juan Capistrano its international prominence in 1939, when he belted out: “Oh, when the swallows come ba-a-ack to Capistrano-o-o-o!” Brooklyn-bred Bugs Bunny followed suit in cartoons.
Now, the swallows at their legendary mission haunts are outnumbered by other species, including pigeons. Visitors are just as likely to find nests of swallows at Saddleback College’s Applied Technology Building as at the mission.
Many swallows venture out into nearby creeks, cliffs and overpasses or to nearby cities; hundreds have been going to Van Nuys. A small colony has shown up at the Mission Viejo Mall.
Local filmmaker Bill Baker said getting good shots of the swallows has become increasingly difficult.
“You really have to hunt for them now. It’s not like the chronicles used to say, where they’d blacken the sky.”
But longtime resident Dale Maze, 57, sees it differently.
“We’re just sharing our swallows with everyone else,” Maze said. “You know, the mission swallows come to San Fernando, too. But hey, we have the song.”
