Calif. mission lures iconic swallows back

The graceful birds once swarmed to the 236-year-old mission each spring, flying from the pampas of southern Argentina to nest in the stone ruins of the mission's earthquake-damaged church. In recent years, however, the swallows have all but vanished after repairs meant removing some nests and urban sprawl crept closer to the mission's door.

Now, decades after their annual ritual was immortalized in a chart-topping romantic ballad, the mission is attempting to lure the swallows back with a love song that's all their own. Speakers hidden amidst the colorful gardens play cliff swallow courtship calls for up to six hours a day during mating season in a last-ditch effort to woo the flocks back.

The experiment, which began several weeks ago, is the brainchild of an Oklahoma ornithologist who has studied cliff swallows for nearly 30 years and has been consulting with the mission on how to win over the small, gregarious birds that have been intertwined with its history for at least a century. The story of the cliff swallows draws crowds each year for the annual month-long fiesta that marks their return and the Swallows Day Parade, with vibrant mariachi music, dancing and the ringing of the mission bells.

"They're ambassadors. If people only know to come to the mission because they hear about the birds first, and they arrive here and they have a sense of inspiration or they become better educated about California history ... then the birds have done us a service," said Mechelle Lawrence-Adams, the mission's executive director.

The tale of the swallows is almost as old as the mission itself.

The historic landmark, founded in 1776, was the seventh of 21 outposts established by Franciscan missionaries in what is now California as Spanish colonizers pushed north and spread Christianity.

The first missionaries noticed that each spring flocks of swallows would arrive in the area, usually around March 19, or St. Joseph's Day. In 1812, the mission's massive stone church crumbled in an earthquake and at some point, the swallows began nesting on the ruins of the towering stone chapel. The earliest written documentation of the swallow colony there is an article from 1915, but oral tradition indicates the birds were there years before that.

In 1939, songwriter Leon Rene earned the cream-bellied birds a place in pop culture — and the nation's heart — with the love ballad "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano," which reached No. 4 on the charts and was recorded by numerous artists, including The Ink Spots, Pat Boone, Glenn Miller and Gene Autry.

Suzi Patton, who visited the mission as a child, cherishes a memory of her mother standing in front of the mission bells and singing the song as dozens of curious swallows circled behind her, calling out as if in response. On a recent spring day, Patton stopped by with a friend for the first time in 40 years and was dismayed to find no traces of the birds.