I looked out the other day and saw at least 15 barn swallows swooping around the front of the barn. Since I knew we only had the two parents and three babies old enough to fly, I knew we had visitors. Sure enough, barn swallows migrate too. We have another tour group stopping in today.
Dive bombing me and Kate.
See the bug in the closest bird's mouth? I hadn't even seen any bugs flying around and swoop, another one gone. We are in really good shape bug-wise around here this summer. I credit the barn swallows, purple martins and bats.
And now we have four new barn swallows! I've been watching the "bebbies" grow for the last few weeks - a second group in the same nest - and knew they were close to fledging. Today was the day. When I first approached the barn this afternoon I saw six sitting on the swing and loft. Two flew out and started yelling at me, so these four are the babies.
And one brave parent flew back in to keep watch. Good job, everybody!
We've kept a steady stream of around 20 martins flying in every day or so and then they pretty much stopped last week. But now some new groups are passing through. I think it's so neat that they found us or remember seeing us last year or somehow got the word that this is a good stopping point.
They don't stay long.
Well, most of them don't ;-).
"Hey, where'd everybody go?"
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