Flight of Faith: The Enduring Mystery of Capistrano’s Swallows

Every year, a California town celebrates an old mission and the cliff swallows that migrate to nest there.

The cliff swallows of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., are famous for arriving at the mission around March 19 every year. Biba Kayewich

In a world that seems to be changing more rapidly than ever, there’s a quiet comfort in knowing some things remain the same—like the swallows returning to the old Mission San Juan Capistrano in Southern California.

I would have liked to have seen the Capistrano swallows in the heyday of their celebrated return, when people were more likely to view the migratory spectacle as a whisper of the divine or an unsolved mystery of the natural world.