Burrs Mill Brook 5/26--Bank Swallow

I took a walk along Burrs Mill Brook this morning, a spot I found a few years ago while looking at Google Maps. It's preserved land in Burlco, a sand trail that seems to be part of the fire lane system in the woods there. The brook itself has some broken down sluice gates, so it must have had some commercial history in the past, but I have no idea what it was or who Burr was and where his mill was located.  I go there once a year in the spring or summer to supplement a walk I've taken elsewhere. The first time I went there I followed the trail along the brook then went right, crossed over a culvert and walked up into the woods where I found myself at the edge of one of the many sand quarries that are dotted all over the Pine Barrens. To my surprise (as I wrote yesterday in birding, surprise is my goal), I found a flock of Bank Swallows and their nests in the sandy sides of the quarry. Now, on my annual visit, I hike over there, stand just outside the property edge so I'm not trespassing, and find the swallows swirling around, their nests in a different area each year. Today, their nests were in the near bank, so I wasn't able to see them without standing on the edge of the quarry, but from watching their flight as they flew directly at the bank, they were obviously going in and out of the holes or else they were kamikaze swallows. Hard to count the rapidly shifting flock, but I figured there were at least 15 of them, plus a few I saw flying over the brook itself. 

I've been told that the quarrymen have instructions not to dig sand out of the area where the swallows are nesting and leave those areas untouched until the swallows depart in late summer. It's a story I'd like to believe. 

35 species

Wood Duck  2
Mourning Dove  4
Yellow-billed Cuckoo  3
Killdeer  1
Laughing Gull  2
Turkey Vulture  1
Red-tailed Hawk  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  4
Northern Flicker  1
Eastern Wood-Pewee  3
Eastern Phoebe  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  5
Eastern Kingbird  2
White-eyed Vireo  2
Blue Jay  1
Fish Crow  1
Carolina Chickadee  1
Tufted Titmouse  2
Bank Swallow  15     
Carolina Wren  3
Gray Catbird  5
American Robin  1
Cedar Waxwing  2
Eastern Towhee  1
Baltimore Oriole  1
Red-winged Blackbird  5
Brown-headed Cowbird  1
Ovenbird  4
Black-and-white Warbler  1
Common Yellowthroat  5
Pine Warbler  4
Prairie Warbler  5
Northern Cardinal  1
Blue Grosbeak  1
Indigo Bunting  2