\n\t\t\t\t\t\tA colony of barn swallows has returned to its summer home in New Hampshire, but the doors and windows of the barn where they have nested have been shut tight against them.Earlier this year, Rye health officials shut down access to the barn at Goss Farm, leaving the birds without a place to stay.”It’s very heartbreaking, because they have a beautiful song, and you can see them up there trying to get in,” said Susan Shepcaro of Save Our Swallows.She said the swallows have been returning to the barn every summer for years.>> Download the free WMUR app to get updates on the go <<“They just want to do what they’ve been doing forever,” she said.But this year, there will be no flying in and out of the barn. The swallows were evicted from Goss Farm by the town and have met a metal fence instead of an open door.”All the problems started when the town health safety officer said that we could not have swallows and human beings in the barn together,” said Gary Terhune of the Rye Conservation Commission.He said decades of built-up bird waste on the rafters left the town with a cleaning bill in the thousands of dollars.”That’s a mighty expensive birdhouse, and we would be wrong to keep the residents of Rye out of this building for the entire summer,” Terhune said.The commission has built alternative structures on the farm, hoping that when the birds realize the barn is closed, they will nest here.”And we don’t know exactly if there’s any that have started the nesting process, but at least we see them checking the sites out,” Terhune said.The group Save Our Swallows will host a rally at the farm on Saturday, saying that closing the barn will only further reduce the birds’ declining population because that’s where they breed.”We understand that after trying two years in a row and not getting in, they will probably mostly give up,” Shepcaro said.She said blocking the birds from the summer home goes against the mission of the Conservation Commission. “Definitely,” Shepcaro said. “It’s against the mission of conservation.”Terhune disagreed. “Conservation is what we’re all about,” he said. “So, we’ve tried to do everything we can. Hence the alternative nesting structures.”\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tRYE, N.H. \u2014<\/strong> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n A colony of barn swallows has returned to its summer home in New Hampshire, but the doors and windows of the barn where they have nested have been shut tight against them.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Rye health officials shut down access to the barn at Goss Farm, leaving the birds without a place to stay.<\/p>\n “It’s very heartbreaking, because they have a beautiful song, and you can see them up there trying to get in,” said Susan Shepcaro of Save Our Swallows.<\/p>\n She said the swallows have been returning to the barn every summer for years.<\/p>\n