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38/ NOVEMBER 2021 THE RIDER Please Support Our Advertisers!


It is with their support that we are able to provide the comprehensive news package that we do. Tell them you saw their ad in The Rider


What Jack Miner Wrote About Barn Swallows


By Linda Marie Glass Ward Jack Miner is a name synony-


mous with bird conservation in Canada and the United States. He is responsible increasing the Canada goose populations in both countries. At a time when animals were shot, trapped and fished indiscriminately for food, fashion, or financial gain he began to consider conservation. After many years as a market hunter, and hunting party guide he turned his at- tention to conservation...somewhat. From a poor family, this self


made man owned a lucrative brick yard. Financial success enabled him to tour two countries, speaking on behalf of the birds. In an effort to save the Canada


goose from extinction, he found a way to contain several Canada geese on his property near Kingsville, Ontario. He did so to entice others to feed there during their migration. In spite of his


During that time I read the first


game law I have any knowledge of ever being published. I found it in Deuteronomy, twenty-second chapter, verses six and seven, which reads as follows: “If a bird’s nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: but thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days.” I read, and tried to analyze the meaning, but my eyes were too weak to see the point.


Finally, to my delight, when I Whispering Hearts


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love of game birds and song birds, he was not a fan of all the birds. And he had an unhealthy disgust for the mam- mals which preyed on them. He had no compunction about


destroying weasels, wolves, owls, hawks, and other natural predators of his waterfowl. He also did not mind introducing foreign species of birds to Canada, such as Ring-necked Pheas- ants.


The author of several books and


a proponent of bird conservation, he is well known as Wild Goose Jack. There are two bird sanctuaries main- tained in his name. At the southern- most places on the Great Lake shorelines in Ontario. I have read JACK MINER and


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www.facebook.com/circle8ranchontario Ellie Ross 519-404-5959


the BIRDS By JACK MINER Him- self. I purchased a first edition of the book at a used book store. Full of black and white photographs it is a brief autobiography of the man, and a thoroughly enjoyable read. In it is a chapter about barn swallows, which I enjoyed immensely. I quote it here. The three photographs are from this same book, published in Toronto by Ryerson Press.


CHAPTER XIII The Swallow Family. THIS is, to my notion, the most


valuable family of birds we have in America, as they live entirely on winged insects. And while I am writ- ing on their value. I want you to keep your eye on their intelligence. Over twenty-five years ago we


built an extra large drying shed at our tile factory. It is two hundred feet long, and two stories high; then with the ad- dition of one hundred feet of machine shed, we have over three hundred feet of the very choicest place for the old- fashioned, fork-tailed barn swallows. Here it stood, with those win-


dows continually open, for years; but no swallows came near.


young. Now we had just what we had been looking for, and these birds ap- parently thought the same, for every man in the factory had learned to love them and know their call when a spar- row arrived. This, too, may sound a little fishy, but I will go you one bet- ter: I know you could blindfold me and I could tell you if there was a swallows’s enemy approaching them. If they looked to us to help them why surely they know we were their friends. The third spring they came back


in goodly numbers and built five nests, and the fifth year there were no less than twenty nests in the shed. But the beauty of it all is, they simply dis-


species of birds, and it has been open to the public since 1904. Visitors can still feed ducks and geese, hike in the woods, and visit the museum, house and grounds. Admission is free. The address is; 332 Road 3 West, Kingsville, Ontario, 519 733-4034. It is 22 kilometres from Point Pelee Na- tional Park. On a spit in Lake Erie it is the southernmost point of mainland Canada. It is a resting place for ex- hausted birds migrating across the Great Lakes in spring and fall.


Linda Marie Glass Ward (The Barn Swallow Carpenter) 519-327-4541


Where the Whispers of Many Horses in need are Heard!


went over to the factory one morning here was the pair of long-looked-for swallows darting around near the south end of this shed. Now the ma- chinery, where ninety per cent. of the work is done, is at the extreme north end of the shed; the south part is used for drying purposes only. And the next morning this pair of birds had some mud stuck up at the points of the third pair of rafters from the south end. They were building just as far from us workmen as they possibly could and still be under the same roof. How this pair of birds did keep those two verses of Scripture fresh in my mind. Well, they had no sooner com-


pleted their house and started setting on five eggs,than along came their deadly enemy, the English sparrow, and destroyed the nest. Then I went up the air pretty high and came down with a .22 rifle in my hand, and pointed a whole lot of my attention at this particular variety of sparrow. And I had the pleasure of seeing those swallows rebuild and successfully raise their second brood, which is four. Before they migrated, they got quite tame and by times they apparently came closer to us than necessary. The next spring two pairs came


back, one pair occupying the old nest, but the others built about fifty feet closer to us. I watched the sparrows closer than ever, and it seemed that the swallows called to us as much to say “Help! Help!” whenever their enemies put in their appearance, and I always tried to be on hand like a sore thumb. That summer each pair raised two broods, making a total of eighteen


carded the south end, and fifteen of the nests are within twenty feet of the busiest spot on the premises where the men are all working and the steam is sometimes blowing. This proves with- out a doubt that these little, innocent, valuable birds came to us for protec- tion.


I have seen three alight on the


cart-horse’s back at once. I have also seen the clay digger put his hand upon the nest, and the old mother bird would simply look over the side as much as to say, mother bird would simply look over the side as much as to say, “Do you like me?” But let a stranger go in the clay shed, and you will hear their sweet, alarmed voices ring out by the dozens. Another very interesting sight is


when the parent of, say nest number one, darts in at the window, fifty feet away from the nest, the hungry mouths in that nest will go up, proving that each nest of fledglings know their parents as soon as they see them at that distance. Another great satisfaction to me


is that there are now swallows’ nests in about every horse-barn of this neighbourhood. The great question is: What good are they? We have made a careful study of this point. I have time and again put a sheet of paper under the nest, and when these five fledg- lings are at their best for consuming flies there is about one-half cupful of dropping thrown overboard every twenty-four hours. I have seen our cow and cart-horse and our self-starter all three lying down in the shade of the shed, and comfortable as could be be- cause here were a dozen swallows dip- ping up and down after every fly that appeared. Now scientists tell us that these


typhoid flies will carry germs. Such being the fact, when this bird catches and devours the fly that is on its way to your house with that dreaded dis- ease, then it has prolonged your days. “That it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days.” So ended the excerpt about barn


swallows in Chapter XIII. Then he discusses purple martins to close out the chapter. Jack Miner used his brickyard property to preserve many different


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