It all began around June 2020 when I received a red hot tip that alerted me to the presence of a significant cliff swallow colony in southern Berkshire County. Like many other people existing during the summer of 2020, the covid outbreak had me slightly unnerved. Seeking any distraction that held any potential of taking my mind off of things, I focused much of my attention, not only of the monitoring of our beloved recovering colony of cliff swallows at Berkshire Community College, but the monitoring of other cliff swallow colonies locations. Up until the tip off, I was aware of 9 colonies in Western MA, the largest of which was at a farm in Cheshire. I decided to take a ride one Friday morning to Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, MA. When I arrived at the front of the Daniel Arts Center, I was awestruck at the multitude of cliff swallows flying about in their later stage nest building activities. Already, there were nests active with chicks many of which were about 3 weeks to 1 month old. At that point I had counted 119 active nests. I immediately contacted Mara Silver, our nearby insectivore expert and told her she needed to get down there ASAP. I then shared with her the video below.
She arrived at the site shortly thereafter.
With a colony as large as the one in Great Barrington,, I also began to see signs of the sadder side of cliff swallow colonial life that I had only read about in reference works and scientific papers on the subject. The sadder side of course, refers to the mortality of the chicks. Chicks either falling from their nests, leaping out of them because the swallow bugs proved to be too much, and even ejected from their nests by house sparrows. Heavy stuff. Because of the way the buildings are constructed here at BCC, cliff swallow chicks could very well have fallen out of their nests here too, but I never would see it, because of the ledging. One Friday morning at Bard College, while during my weekly nest count I heard something strike metal twice and and land on the gravel behind me. I turned around and a couple of feet away from me was a cliff swallow chick. 
I had no Idea what to do. My instincts told me to try to put it back into the nest I thought it fell from, however since the nests were at least 20 feet high, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Next, I contacted Tom Tyning and Mara Silver. I then adjourned to my car in search of a suitable sensory deprivation chamber, (a box) for my new friend as not to subject it to any further trauma. I didn’t have anything like that in my car, however, due to my really bad sinuses, I’m always sure to keep an ample supply of facial tissues in my vehicle. I pulled all the hankees out of the box, and now had something that would do for the kind of pinch I was in. It was about this time that I heard back from both Tom and Mara. Interestingly, they both had come up with the contact information for a local wildlife rehabilitator located in Cummington, MA. After a few rounds of phone tag, I received the information I needed and commenced the duty of the”Avian Ambulance Driver” for what amounted to about a 1 hour drive to the location of the wildlife rehabilitator, where I dropped off the patient. Unfortunately, he had sustained significant neurological injury from the crashes into metal objects and had to be euthanized.
About a week later I went back to the colony to see how everyone was doing, with a bit of apprehension. This time I was sure to keep a proper box inside of the vehicle just in case. Again I while I was in the midst of a nest count, another chick landed a few inches from my right foot. Only this time the chick was much younger than the first one. Unlike the first chick that fell, the younger chick hit the gravel directly without the extra impacts with metal objects. When I looked down she was clambering about to try to get out of the sun. I introduced a box and the chick walked right in.
Given the age of the chick, I thought she didn’t stand a chance, but after another call to Judy, (the wildlife rehabilatator), I packed her up into my vehicle for another Avian Ambulance ride to the wildlife rehabilitaton facility. 22 days later, this really young helpless looking chick grew strong enough, flew well enough, and was able to hunt adequately enough to be released back into the wild. So during the late morning hours of July 25, 2020 the chick was released back into the colony where she came from.
There was still a flock of around 20 + cliff swallows with about a dozen barn swallows who were chasing insect prey and feeding. The flock would return to the campus about every 20 minutes more or less, so we timed the release of the cliff swallow chick with the timing of the arrival of the flock. Video of the release of the chick into the flock is below. Yes! Yes! Sweet Freedom!