How to attract barn swallows??

[starling shooter]

I put up nest cups under car port. No luck. Anybody use a electronic caller. Tape exist. Thx in advance.

[Ed Svetich-WI]

Pretend you do not like them. They will show up!

Ed

[John T]

Ed, that is so true. I had them nesting under my front porch(stucco). They almost ruined the stucco so the next year I started tearing out nests. Finally they went somewhere else. These birds are pretty but don't let them fool you, they are very nasty. They're nests are made of mud and really hard to clean up.

[LesMartin]

I totally disagree about the nastiness of these birds. They are arguably the most agile of the swallow family and destroy many harmful insects all summer. Their nests are certainly messy but I have noticed that this is very common when swallows reproduce. Housekeeping is virtually non-existent especially at the end of the breeding cycle.
I built a barn swallow shelter behind my house a few years ago complete with nesting cups but they have not used it yet. I found an old swallow nest and attached it in the shelter in hopes of making the shelter more attractive to them. Apparently barn swallows prefer sites where other members of their tribe have nested successfully just like martins it seems.

[Buckeyefarmer]

It was always entertaining to watch the swallows divebomb the farm cats as they crossed the barnyard. They seemed to like nesting in the floor joist of the mow floor in the low part of the barn and the driveway of the double corn crib.