Horseneck hoedown

When I first started walking the beach as something more than a casual visitor, the last thing I expected to see there in quantity was barn swallows. This is ocean, and sand and dune - not farm and field and barn. But on spring and summer mornings they are frequently there in force, flying just a few feet - or inches - above the sand, apparently feasting on an insect population I can't even see. When working against the wind they can pass you in what seems like slow motion - when working with it, they can be spinning, twisting blurs, some times flashing a deep, irrirdescent blue, in the morning sun. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of mahogany, or white, or a fanned tail, or splayed wing. Always they put on one of the most beautiful flying exhibitions you can imagine. They weave about you like children or puppies, running, giggling into the roiling surf - only the swallows stay just above the water line.

Their cousins, the bank swallows, sometimes build nests in the sides of dunes. Perhaps the barn swallows take advantage of the huge sheds of Tripp's Boat Yard, barely a quarter of mile behind the beach. I don't know. All I know is they are an unexpected delight and one morning I captured them with brief spurts of video and drew these shots from individual frames. Hope they convey a little of the feeling of the reality of being there.

Greg Stone, Horseneck Beach, Westport, MA June 2003