Birds’ Evasion of Mission Is a Tough Loss to Swallow

The mission bells rang as the swallows returned to San Juan Capistrano’s historic mission Tuesday morning, an annual ceremony that overshadows a nagging problem.

The swallows that once arrived in cloud-like flocks now just trickle in.

The migratory birds have been steering clear of the mission and the ruins of the Great Stone Church for nearly a decade, favoring freeway overpasses, shopping malls and--for reasons that are unclear--a college technology building.

Mission officials are hoping this is the last year the swallows will turn up their beaks at the place that made them famous: the 200-year-old mission. By next season, more than 100 ceramic nests will be hung in the rafters of the Great Stone Church while recorded swallow calls will be played to help win back the tiny birds.

“The hope is that a new generation will restart at the mission,” said Bill Baker, a wildlife photographer in San Juan Capistrano who has documented the birds for three years. The mission is following the advice of Charles R. Brown, an associate professor of behavioral ecology and ornithology at the University of Tulsa and a swallows expert.

The birds apparently have been turned off to the mission grounds since earthquake retrofitting began at the church in the early 1990s, a project that resulted in the bird’s mud nests being destroyed.

After spending a few days studying the situation, Brown decided that the swallows just needed a reason to stop at the mission after their 7,500-mile trek from Goya, Argentina.

He encouraged mission officials to build hundreds of artificial mud nests and play recorded swallow calls.

“Come March of next year, they’ll be calling swallows back to the mission--and hopefully in big numbers,” said Baker, who has worked with Brown on the project.

Until then, the faithful will have to be satisfied with the occasional sighting. Tuesday’s ceremonies began at 8:20 a.m. when Mike Gastelum rang the bells after spotting a small cluster of swallows winging above the church’s bell towers.

“There was only about six or seven of them,” said Gastelum, who replaced his grandfather, the mission’s bell ringer for 42 years. “Back in the early days, my grandfather used to see small clouds of them fly over. He wouldn’t ring the bell for just a few.”

Now there’s evidence that the swallows prefer the high arches of the Technology and Applied Science Building at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo to the ruins of the old church.

So far, there haven’t been any sightings at the college. The Swallows Day parade, which has been a tradition since the 1930s, will take place Saturday. And then mission officials will turn their attention back to the birds.