A sequence captured at the pond next to the Oregon Fish & Wildlife office in Adair. Shot by Albert Ryckan as Barn Swallow dive bombs a juvenile Pied-billed Grebe:
Just being super aggressive maybe, though grebes do eat insects on the surface so they are competitors…great sequence.
The Barn Swallow’s aggression is not just against raptors (including Turkey Vultures which I take for symbolic, not worthwhile on swallows part), corvids and blackbirds. They have the effrontery to challenge humans so they have a nasty rep among certain holier-than-thou types online. Then some Barn Swallows will nest above a door and people often will not willingly deal with the emissions. We had one big-city neighbor who simply taped down newspaper to catch the droppings, and replaced said paper every few days. For some folks that’s a measure of tolerance too far. I can only add that I have read a single B-S consumes thousands of mosquitoes in a single day in that insect is on the local menu.
Towheeblog 
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