Monday, July 11, 2011

Tree swallow babies

There are 13 nest boxes on my property - here is one at the north end which is very popular. Originally they were meant for bluebirds, but those beautiful gentle souls don't get here soon enough and the swallows lately have been driving them away. I thought for a while that one box would be taken over by bluebirds as happened last year at the end of swallow breeding, but it doesn't seem to be the case this year.


Somewhere in this next photograph are one or two or more baby swallows. I had opened the nest box to take a photo of what I thought was an empty nest and when I looked at the pictures later on the computer realized that I was quite wrong. I can see a leg amidst all the feathers that swallows use to line their nests for the little ones, but haven't returned with a ladder to get a good look inside.

So I wasn't too surprised the other evening when hearing all kinds of swallow twitterings as the dogs and I walked past this particular box, a little head popped out, peered around and immediately ducked back inside. It likely won't be more than a day or two before they babies fledge. I'm not sure how many there are and frankly I'm nervous about opening the box again, so hopefully I'll be around to see the grand launch.

New life - the circle continues.

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