{"id":102755,"date":"2025-03-12T10:41:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T09:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcb.ub.edu\/?p=102755"},"modified":"2025-03-12T10:43:39","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T09:43:39","slug":"the-return-of-the-swallow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcb.ub.edu\/en\/the-return-of-the-swallow\/","title":{"rendered":"The return of the swallow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past few days, we have been able to see swallows again in our skies, busy looking for food and building new nests or rebuilding old ones. Despite the heavy rains that have kept temperatures quite chilly, spring is in the air. The first house martins (<em>Delichon urbicum<\/em>) signal the imminent return of the barn swallow (<em>Hirundo rustica<\/em>), the common swift (<em>Apus apus<\/em>) and the alpine swift (<em>Tachymarptis melba<\/em>), all of which are urban migratory species <em>par excellence<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Since ancient times, humanity has celebrated the return of the swallow. Nature&#8217;s ebb and flow marked the passage of the seasons: when the cranes migrated, it was time to sow the fields, and the swallows&#8217; return announced that spring had arrived. There are many ancient texts that mention the coming and going of birds long before we understood anything about migration. Naturalists, poets and oracles developed countless theories: birds that went underground or to the bottom of the sea to beat the cold, transmutations into other more resistant birds or even birds that went to the moon and returned after 4 months. These are just some of the explanations of migratory phenomenon given over time. Even now, in the popular imagination, swallows represent return and fidelity.<\/p>\n<p>We leave you with the reference for an interesting article with a historical overview of theories and beliefs about migration.<\/p>\n<p>Green A. 2019. Cultural response to the migration of the bar swallow in Europe. ANUHJ Historical Journal II, 1: 87-107\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pdfs.semanticscholar.org\/6765\/067365a5dbe4781467f42d0b99dbfe15198c.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/pdfs.semanticscholar.org\/6765\/067365a5dbe4781467f42d0b99dbfe15198c.pdf\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past few days, we have been able to see swallows again in our skies, busy looking for food and building new nests or rebuilding old ones. Despite the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":102749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[205,209],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-good-health-and-well-being","category-ods-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The return of the swallow - Parc Cient\u00edfic de Barcelona<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcb.ub.edu\/en\/the-return-of-the-swallow\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The return of the swallow - Parc Cient\u00edfic de Barcelona\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the past few days, we have been able to see swallows again in our skies, busy looking for food and building new nests or rebuilding old ones. 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