Readers’ wildlife photos

I’m pretty much out of photos, so please send some in. Thanks!

Today’s photos comr from Jan Malik and were taken in New Jersey. Jan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here are a few pictures from my walk on the first day of spring in the New Jersey Botanical Garden in Ringwood, NJ. The quality isn’t the best (long distance, heavy cropping, fast‑moving subjects, and, let’s be honest, a mediocre photographer), but the series gives a sense of what early spring feels like for the birds.

Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) have arrived in the Northeast from their wintering grounds in the Caribbean. The first task for the males is to secure a nesting site. A natural tree cavity will do well, but those are scarce, so human‑made nest boxes are highly prized:

There are no property rights in the swallow world. A box is yours only if you can defend it, and a challenger usually appears sooner rather than later:

Both birds are males, judging by their metallic blue sheen and their persistence in aerial combat;

Outside the breeding season, Tree Swallows can be quite social, but securing a nesting site takes precedence over chivalry. No swallow lady is going to elope with a nestless beau:

Nest boxes are fitted with metal predator guards meant to deter squirrels and rat snakes. This one, however, wouldn’t slow down a determined squirrel for long:

Sometimes these fights end badly. Not because one bird actually kills the other, but because a damaged wing is effectively a death sentence:

The combat pauses briefly when a Red‑shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) appears, circling in the thermals to gain altitude on its northward migration. Both swallows take shelter in a nearby tree until the danger passes:

Once the hawk moves on, the duel resumes, with both birds circling around the prize they’re fighting for:

Their Latin name suits them well — they are indeed “fast‑moving, two‑colored” birds. Their high airspeed is a challenge for inexperienced photographers. It doesn’t help that they’re smaller than an average sparrow and weigh only about 20 grams. No way they could tow a coconut, even in tandem:

I’ve had better luck photographing them during nesting season, when they fly more predictably while hunting insects on the wing. In this aerial melee, though, their flight is wildly erratic:

Eventually, the winner of this round inspects his real estate. The duel lasted a little under an hour, with both birds spending most of that time in the air and burning a lot of energy: