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Saticoy, California USA
34.27o N, 119.13o W
Jan Wasserman, Coordinator
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This is a seed site along the Santa Clara River, where Jan Wasserman has been encouraging Tree Swallows to nest since 1990. Boxes are arrayed around artificial ponds used to recharge ground water in the area. Vegetation is kept to a minimum, but the Tree Swallows don’t seem to mind. In contrast to many Golondrinas sites, only Tree Swallows use the boxes - only one house sparrow in 11 years!
Data collection and banding at the site really got underway in 1995 with the establishment of “Tree Swallow Nesting Projects, Inc.”, a non-profit organization dedicated to the re-establishment of T. bicolor as a breeding species in Ventura County and all of Southern California (see www.treeswallows.org). The site has over a hundred boxes and will become a major site in southern California as soon as we can get the data flowing.
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Jan, an enthusiastic birder since 1986, has dedicated herself for more than a decade to working with cavity-nesters of all kinds, but particularly swallows. She is an active bander, having been trained by the late Elliot McClure: in 2001 she oversaw the banding of more than 1000 Tree Swallow nestlings!
The project at Saticoy started out mostly as a conservation/environmental project, to re establish the birds in the area. The interesting biological questions, and attempts to answer them, came several years into the project. Jan is currently working closely with Wink on some analyses of her substantial data set.
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