News


Thursday, 05 July 2012 13:16

Aranzadi will select 25 Basque farmhouses that have during the month of July breeding Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) with chicks, for knowing in a deeper way the movements of those birds:

Where pass our barn swallows the winter?

Do male and female travel together?

All those questions will be answered through the project ELAIA 2012-2013.

The objective of the project is the determination of the migration flyway, in autumn and spring, of the Barn Swallows that breed in Urdaibai and the identification of their wintering areas in Africa. 
 
On the other hand, this project will let us know which are the velocities of migration of those birds  or if they travel and winter together or not.
 
All this information will be obtained through some geolocators or monitoring devices that fitted with an harness on the back of the Barn Swallows, will provide the information of the geographic position of these birds at every moment.
 
The Barn Swallow has been selected for this work because this is one of the closest bird to the human being and the survival of this species is highly linked to the Basque farmhouses and their surroundings.

The Basque farmers know better than no one the customs, biology and threats of this little bird, but our challenge is the transmission of a little of this knowledge from their elders to the new generations and the maintenance of the interest in conserving those birds. In fact, traditionally the barn swallow has always been a symbol of health and for this reason, their nest were always protected and any damage to the could be extended to the home.
 
  
This bird is an authentic survivor because every year they fights against the natural phenomena: abrupt climate change, heavy rains,  a drop in temperature that make their food (the flying insects) unavailable.
 
But nowadays, their main threat is the human being that contributes to an important decline, among another impacts  the following ones can be highlighted: not only the abandoning of the traditional agriculture that gave them the food but also the use  of more and more pesticides and the transformation of the farmhouses into chalets where they can't nest.
 
For this reason, if you have Barn Swallows at home in Urdaibai and you want to know what they do when they go in autumn, contact us through This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  or the phone 94.625.11.57 and we will try to follow your birds.
 
 
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