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JUNE SIMMS: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.
 
(Music)
I'm June Simms. This week on our program, we tell about an old Roman Catholic mission  https://www.51lunwen.com/master_degree.html in California, once known for getting winged visitors each spring.
 
And we listen to some songs about the different ways humans experience the end of love.
 

A couple in Athens' Syntagma Square
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Swallows of Capistrano
 
JUNE SIMMS: San Juan Capistrano is one of the oldest Roman Catholic missions in California. The religious center was established in the seventeen seventies.
 
San Juan Capistrano is not just famous for its age, however. Its history also includes some extraordinary visitors. Shirley Griffith has our story about the American cliff swallows of San Juan Capistrano.
 
 
John Mione, playing Father Serra, looks skyward for swallows following the ringing of the bells in March 17 at the Mission San Juan Capistrano
 
SHIRLEY GIRFFITH: The swallows migrate in March from Goya, Argentina, to spend the spring in San Juan Capistrano.
 
For years and years, the birds built nests under the top of buildings at the Catholic mission.
 
But no more. In the nineteen nineties, workers repaired and secured the old buildings. Hundreds of old nests were removed. The swallows returned in fewer and fewer numbers. They were not found at the mission at all in the past ten years.
 
The little brown birds with the white triangles on their faces still fly back to the city of San Juan Capistrano every spring.
 
But, the swallows no longer make their home at the mission.
 
Pat March is a volunteer at Mission San Juan Capistrano. She says there have been many attempts to get the birds to return, including setting out food.
 
PAT MARCH: "What they would do is they would put out ladybugs to attract the swallows."
 
Employees also dug shallow holes in the ground around the mission and added water to make mud. The birds make their nests from wet earth.
 
Workers also placed man-made nests under the roof line of mission buildings. None of the attempts worked. So officials decided it was time to seek professional help. Enter scientist Charles Brown.
 
CHARLES BROWN: "I've been studying cliff swallows for about thirty years."
 
Mister Brown is an ornithologist from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. He says forty years of development around San Juan Capistrano has led to a fifty percent reduction of the swallow population in southern California.
 
CHARLES BROWN: "That is the one part of North America where the numbers have been going down."
 
The bird expert offered an unusual idea to mission operators about how to get the swallows back. It centered on the sociable nature of the animals.
 
CHARLES BROWN: "The social species, they often look to see if others have settled there and have others been successful there. So we have to fool them into thinking that birds have been there recently."
 
Charles Brown made recordings of swallows in Oklahoma. The mission hid sound systems in bushes. Soon, swallow song filled the air.
 
The swallow recordings played for two months this spring. The birds did not return to nest at the mission. But, there were signs that they might in the future.
 
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