San Juan Capistrano, Calif. — Mike Gastelum rang the bells at Mission San Juan Capistrano on Saturday to welcome the mission's swallows back from their annual 7,000-mile pilgrimage.
But with no birds in sight, he and the tourists who had come for the event had to settle for seeing a man in a swallow costume.
John Mione looks skyward for swallows after the ringing of the bells at the Mission San Juan Capistrano. The return of the swallows celebration has been going on since 1936. No swallows were sighted Saturday.
"I really want to see one," Marvin Loudermilk, 70, of Athens, Ohio, said as he scanned the sky. "I've heard so much about this."
"I don't know why they're not here," said Jerry Miller, the mission's administrator. "Maybe it's the weather. It's been too cool."
Legend has it that the sparrow-sized, white-breasted swallows return to the mission every year from their winter home in Goya, Argentina, around the time of the feast of St. Joseph, celebrated March 19.
However, their numbers have diminished in recent years. Mission officials blame scaffolding that surrounds much of the stone church for restorations, and the development boom in surrounding southern Orange County.
To help attract more birds to the mission, officials have scattered ladybugs on rose bushes and made mud puddles the birds can use for nest-making material. They also built ceramic nests to trick the birds into thinking there were other swallows around.
Visitor Krista Jansen of New York City was more excited about Saturday's bell-ringing.
"I do like the birds, but ringing the bell was really great," said Jansen, 17, who won a raffle allowing her to ring the bells.
She followed Gastelum, whose grandfather did the honors for 60 years as a mission employee.
More than 18,000 tourists were expected at the mission during the weekend.
According to tradition, shortly after the mission was built in 1776, a priest saw an innkeeper destroying swallows' nests and decided to welcome the birds to the mission.
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