Each year during the month of March, wild swallows begin arriving at the Walnut/Diamond Bar Sheriff's station. The migratory swallows are insect eaters. A flock of swallows requires 6,000 flies a day to survive. Mud, cliff and barn swallows eat bluebottles, houseflies, bees, hoverflies, mayflies, and moth caterpillars. Migrating swallows can fly around 200 miles a day and can fly at speeds of anywhere between 17 and 35 miles per hour.
These amazing birds come back yearly to the same nests that are built in numerous locations on the stations walls. The birds have made Walnut/Diamond Bar Station their home for many years.
Female swallows will lay between three and six eggs at a time. Swallow egg-laying usually occurs between the months of March through June. Swallow babies can fly from the nest 17 to 25 days after hatching. By the end of September, all mud swallow nests will usually be empty as the swallows have headed south.
All swallows and their nests are fully protected under the “Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918” by state and federal regulations. It is illegal for any person to intentionally kill, injure, take, possess, transport, sell, or purchase them or their parts. It is illegal to intentionally destroy nests with eggs or the young of a swallow. If an adult swallow is occupying a half-built nest, or a fully built nest without eggs, then the law protects it.
Therefore, all station personnel are directed to not disturb these nests, eggs, or birds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Fish and Wildlife, and Los Angeles County Animal Control should be contacted for guidance for removals of inactive nests or removal of injured wildlife.