O.C. Mission: Swallows Day Is a Movable Feast

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO —  Somebody, quick, alert the swallows.

In a break from a centuries-old tradition, Mission San Juan Capistrano will not officially welcome the return of the swallows on St. Joseph’s Day, March 19. Instead, the 219-year-old mission will celebrate Swallows Day early, on March 16, a Saturday, to “allow more families to enjoy the festivities,” Jerry Miller, the mission’s administrator, said Thursday.

As news of the decision spread, it began to spark an uproar in this historic city, known internationally for the tiny swallows’ migratory return each year from South America.

Some folks charged their beloved mission with selling out to commercialism.

“This is crazy. This is the damnedest thing I ever heard of,” said Larry Buchheim, a local rancher, former mayor and lifelong resident of the Capistrano Valley. “March 19 is St. Joseph’s Day. It’s Swallows Day. That’s part of the history of this town.”

But Miller said mission officials decided that too many families are prevented from attending the festivities, which attract thousands of visitors from around the world, on a weekday.

“This is a people place, and this is the National Year of the Family,” Miller said. “We are trying to do something in the spirit of the times.”

Besides, said Miller, “we have noticed the swallows don’t all arrive between 6 and 9 in the morning on the 19th. They send scouts ahead and arrive within a week or two.”

The commemoration of Swallows Day dates to the early days of the mission when, as the legend goes, the fathers noticed that the tiny, darting birds’ arrival coincided with the traditional feast of St. Joseph’s Day, Miller explained.

St. Joseph’s Day quickly became a “bellwether day” marking the return of the swallows; the mission’s bells are chimed with the first sighting of the birds on the morning of March 19.

Not this year.

The bells will chime March 16, Miller said.

The traditional Swallows Day Parade, a separate citywide event in its 38th year, will be held at its usual time on the Saturday after St. Joseph’s Day, March 23.

But this break with custom has people here upset.

“To me, it’s not traditional, it’s not historical, it’s not appropriate,” City Councilman Gil Jones said of changing the celebration date, which he called a commercialization of the event.

“If the mission was a private entity it would be different,” he said. “Swallows Day and St. Joseph’s Day have made the mission.”

Another former mayor, Tony Forster, whose family goes back more than 100 years in San Juan Capistrano and once owned the mission, said he was shocked.

“I’m flabbergasted,” Forster said. “St. Joseph’s Day is on the 19th of March, period. On the 19th of March, I’m going to be checking for swallows, not on the 16th.”