Every year, a California town celebrates an old mission and the cliff swallows that migrate to nest there.
In a world that seems to be changing more rapidly than ever, there’s a quiet comfort in knowing some things remain the same—like the swallows returning to the old
Mission San Juan Capistrano in Southern California.
I would have liked to have seen the Capistrano swallows in the heyday of their celebrated return, when people were more likely to view the migratory spectacle as a whisper of the divine or an unsolved mystery of the natural world.
According to old newspaper reports, as well as the Mission’s own historical archives, thousands of people would gather at Mission San Juan Capistrano, anxiously scanning the skies for the first black dot. These same sources tell us that live, local radio broadcasts would excitedly narrate the event.
These days, however, only a handful of cliff swallows still return to build their gourd-shaped mud nests in the eaves of the Mission. Beginning in the 1990s, renovations to the earthquake-damaged Mission—along with urban sprawl—significantly disrupted nesting sites and habitat.
Yet, bird watchers have noted that the swallows continue to return to the general area. The
Audubon Society reports “large colonies on buildings, cliffs, and under bridges,” with several hundred or thousand nests in a single location. (Cliff swallows, unlike barn swallows, nest together in colonies.)
Historically, March 19 is the day the swallows return, coinciding with St. Joseph’s Day in the Catholic Church.
In 1958, a local restaurateur told a newspaper reporter: “We never used to pay them any attention back in the old days. They were just birds to us. It seems to me this talk about the swallows arriving March 19th didn’t start until about 1932.”
Whatever year people began to take notice, the return of the swallows has long been a celebrated event steeped in tradition and local lore. In 1940, songwriter
Leon René and The Ink Spots romanticized the swallows’ return and propelled them to worldwide fame with the song “
When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano.” (Only in America could the Ink Spots’
trailblazing achievements include crossover hits that appealed to both black and white audiences, even as they made history as the first black performers to appear on national television.)
Building on the song’s success, other traditions sprang up, like the
Swallows Day Parade, or Fiesta de las Golondrinas (Golondrinas is Spanish for “swallows”), which is organized by the San Juan Capistrano Fiesta Association.
In true California style,
Grand Marshals in the early days of the parade included legendary names like Barbara Stanwyck, Audie Murphy, Buddy Ebsen, President Richard Nixon, Andy Devine, and Jimmy Rogers.
When autumn sets in, it’s time to cue the “
Farewell to the Swallows” events, like a popular BBQ that marks the day the swallows leave on their fall migration on or around October 23.
This California event is a unique spectacle that you won’t find anywhere else in the world. My research suggests there isn’t anywhere else that matches San Juan Capistrano’s exact mix of a pinpointed date (March 19), a historic site (the 249-year-old Mission), and a migratory bird species (cliff swallows) with such a long-standing legend. Let’s face it, the
Buzzard Day celebration in Hinckley, Ohio, which celebrates the return of the turkey vultures, just hasn’t risen to the same levels of global phenomenon or enduring legend.
And since the Mission was established to spread the Catholic faith, it’s no surprise that the “legend” part began with a priest, Father St. John O’Sullivan, who co-authored the book, “Capistrano Nights” in 1930.
In it, he
tells the story of how he saw a shopkeeper knocking down the birds’ conically-shaped nests with a broom. When Fr. O’Sullivan asked what he was doing, the shopkeeper exclaimed that the “dirty birds” were a nuisance that were destroying his property. Fr. O’Sullivan, concerned for the homeless creatures, said: “Come on swallows, I’ll give you shelter. Come to the Mission. There’s room enough there for all.”
The very next morning, he found them building their nests at the Mission.
The legend inspired American animator and former Walt Disney aide, Rudolf Ising, to create the 1942 MGM cartoon “The First Swallow.”
If you go to the Mission to see the first swallow in mid-March, you won’t see the postcard-perfect return of legend, but you’ll likely see a few flitting about—enough to keep the spirit of the tradition alive and well.
You’ll also see the oldest building in California, a museum, artifacts, and picturesque grounds. The serene gardens and tranquil atmosphere will inspire spiritual contemplation in people of all faiths.
As for me, I don’t have to see a sky darkened with swallows descending on the old Mission walls to see a miracle: Spring and fall bird migration everywhere is a miracle to those who walk by faith.
Consider the tiny swallow, weighing only about an ounce, winging its way on a roughly 12,000-mile to 16,000-mile roundtrip annually to its wintering ground in Argentina. (Most
websites say the one-way trip is 6,000 miles, but considering migrating birds usually hug the coasts, it’s likely farther than that.) The journey lasts at least a month, with the chatbot Grok calculating it’s likely closer to six to eight weeks due to stopovers.
While 21st-century science has solved a lot of mysteries, we have no choice but to acknowledge there are just as many that remain unsolved. A swallow’s small, delicate body makes it hard to tag with GPS, so frankly, we don’t really know what happens along the way. We cannot answer every “how” or “why,” and I’m okay with that. When we leave these answers in God’s hands, it reminds us to fly by faith—just like the swallows do.
