The weather has finally warmed up. Sweaters have been replaced
with spaghetti straps. Mustard flowers and orange poppies dot the
California hillsides and snake through the vineyards. It’s a
pleasant change, after an especially wet winter.
But at Gavilan College in Gilroy the upswing in temperatures
attracts an onslaught of not-so-welcome, and quite messy
guests.
The weather has finally warmed up. Sweaters have been replaced with spaghetti straps. Mustard flowers and orange poppies dot the California hillsides and snake through the vineyards. It’s a pleasant change, after an especially wet winter.
But at Gavilan College in Gilroy the upswing in temperatures attracts an onslaught of not-so-welcome, and quite messy guests.
“They’re like the renters you don’t want to have but you’re stuck with,” said Art Kerr, Gavilan College director of facilities.
Gavilan’s flock of swallows can definitely be classified as noisy neighbors. Not only do they leave behind hundreds of mud nests when they vacate the premises at the end of the summer, but during their stay they pepper the ground, and often people, with their droppings.
The swallows primarily dwell on the east side of campus, specifically building their nests on the shade-saturated Community Media Access Partnership building. Swallows’ nests are nearly always built out of direct sunlight – under eaves, bridge overhangs or on the north east side of buildings – probably to prevent the nests from getting too warm, said Jerry Smith, associate professor of biology at San Jose State University.
The birds also need a source of mud, such as a stream or pond, and a good supply of insects. Smith said the CMAP building must have an abundance of all three elements. And while they may be messy, the swallows are also an important part of the ecosystem and control mosquitos, which are a source of West Nile Virus and encephalitis, he said.
But mosquitos aren’t what worries CMAP Executive Director Suzanne St. John-Crane, during her summers at Gavilan. The swallows begin to move in during the spring and by mid-summer the area surrounding the public television company looks like a scene from a Hitchcock movie, she said.
Although flocks of birds were already swooping in and out of their mud homes, thick droppings coated the cement surrounding CMAP and more bird poop fell from the sky on a warm May day, St. John-Crane declared “this is nothing.”
When it starts to get really bad, she takes cover.
“I bring an umbrella – I’m not exaggerating – when I come to work,” she said. “I’ve been pooped on several times.”
Not only is it a nuisance, but it’s also embarrassing, since she’s running a business out of the bird-bisieged building. At times there’s several dozen swarming around the doorways and when visitors come by in the summer, St. John-Crane warns them beforehand to watch out.
And when Mayor Al Pinheiro was on campus a few years ago filming a show, he wondered why nothing had been done, St. John-Crane said. But college officials have been searching for a solution to the feathered friends dilemma for years.
Kerr said it’s been a major issue since he began working at Gavilan seven years ago. Federal law prevents the removal of occupied nests but once the swallows fly away for winter, their homes can be demolished.
In the past, maintenance workers would knock down all the nests at the end of the summer but it was pointless because the birds would just return and rebuild the next year.
“The time and cost it takes trying to tear it down, it’s just not really worth each other’s while’s, the swallows or ours,” Kerr said. “We’re trying to live in peaceful co-existence.”
The bird droppings continue to be a major project. In the summer, custodians spend about 20 hours a month cleaning up the mess. Since they must use power sprayers, it’s only feasible to clean on the weekends. At the end of the season, it takes them another week or so to clean-up.
Now the nests stay, unless one falls to the ground. Kerr said he figures it’s more cost-effective to just let them be.
“They’re not disturbing anyone where they’re at,” he said.
James Frazier agrees. Although the birds flock around his classroom, the television production instructor doesn’t view the bird presence as a problem what-so-ever. Actually, he’s fascinated by the creatures, pointing out that they fly in from exotic locales like Brazil.
“The one thing that irritates me is they go to all those cool places and they never send us a postcard,” he said, with a smile.
Frazier even posted a Spanish poem on his wall that celebrates swallows. His favorite line of “Las Golondrinas” (The Swallows) explains that the birds “piyardo de amor” or “peep with love.” Frazier thinks the swallows are beautiful and he loves to watch them glide through the sky. He’s also amazed that the creatures manage to carry all the mud necessary to build their nests when they’re such subtle flyers.
To combat the problem, college officials have discussed installing netting or some type of awning over the eaves to prevent the return of the birds but installing nets and knocking down the nests is bound to hit a sore spot with some students and staff.
Kristina White didn’t even know the campus was swarming with swallows since she’s a cosmetology student and takes classes on the west side of Gavilan. Still, the 19-year-old said she doesn’t think the school has the right to ruin the swallow’s habitat.
“No, because it’s mean,” she said. “We built on their house.”
More students and staff may become more familiarized with the habits of the resident swallows in the future. The birds congregate in the most hospitable habitat when the species is scarce but once they become successful they may begin to spread out across the campus, Smith said.
And if they do, Gavilan College may find itself sunk in a serious debate.
While some embrace the swallows – at Mission San Juan Capistrano they celebrate their return every spring – others aren’t so enthusiastic. In the 1960s, the birds became a serious point of contention at SJSU. The nests were washed off prior to nesting season but when maintenance illegally removed them, it struck a chord with “environmentally-oriented students,” Smith said.
“For the first Earth Day period at SJSU one of the fraternities offered ‘swallow s— insurance’ in the student paper,” Smith wrote in an e-mail. “If you were pooped on they would pay for dry cleaning. However, the persistent persecution at SJSU, along with the increasing development of downtown San Jose, resulted in the swallows pretty much abandoning the campus. I assume some are happy about it – cleanliness is next to godliness (or is it sterility is tranquility)?”
Heather Bremner is a staff writer. Reach her at
hb******@gi************.com
or 847-7097.
