Osprey II
This is a redo. I got shots of the nest a while back. I just stopped by the roadside and let the traffic behind weave around me. This time I pulled off the road once again. The sun was wrong. There were three – a juvenile and two adults? It was worth the stop. Sometimes you take what you can get or we have nothing to speak about, or, to look at.
Long term rental
The barn swallows have returned for the third year. I guess they will be back. Last year they made eight little swallows in two batches. I guess you would call it successful. There are lots of swallows buzzing around but no other nests in proximity. They are fastidious. They poop over the side of the nest onto my garage sill. It makes sense. I would keep my place clean if I were coming back. Again and again. Come to think of it, I posted this mother’s pic two days in a row.
Nesting site
Three sides of my house each has a bird nest: barn swallows out front under the balcony eve, right side in the tree outside the living room window, and left side robin’s nest. They all have a lining at the lip of the nest. Soft? The barn swallows poop over the side and leave a mess in the garage door entrance. (You probably don’t want to know that.) The robins? Colleen saw a little one hopping around. Fell out of the nest? We don’t know and didn’t find out. But I got a good pic of the nest. It looks like it was just finished. You could smell fresh paint. And, that’s when I noticed the liner common to all three nests. Hmmmm. you learn something new each day. No nest to the back. Yet. Some bird has trashed my flower container looking for something to eat. Damn. I haven’t seen nor caught the guilty party. Otherwise there doesn’t seem to be any place inviting to make a nest.
Nesting
We now have a sparrow(?) nesting in the tree outside our window. Ray (the cat) found it. He was clawing at the glass. Thanks Ray. Another photo op. Ray is now in “timeout.” He doesn’t get that annoying the new mom is not allowed. Four eggs! How’d she do it? Those are large eggs for a little bird. Neat trick. Clap hands, we need some cheer (and hope) around here.
Barn swallows
They came back. A pair of swallows made a nest last year. I have posted before on the earlier set. Now the parents returned to hatch a new brood. Lucky us. This time everyone got big and flew the nest without incident. Last year one little fellow fell and was rescued and taken to the bird rescue people. They were gone so quickly I hardly had a chance to get any images.
Birds of a feather…
Ok, it’s not a shout out to Wawa. There is a certain need to build a nest at a certain time. But location, location, location? This is a bit extreme. At least I would not want to be out where everyone can see. Why not a tree? Or, are other predators put off by all the people around?
Back
They came back. We have had a pair of barn swallows carefully build a nest under the eave of the balcony over my garage. They hatched five baby birds last year. The last one required rescue. It couldn’t fly and was pushed out of the nest to the ground. It was a harrowing rescue for us. This year they hatched five more in the same nest. They all successfully flew off in early summer. Now, it’s midsummer and we see barn swallows swooping about our balcony. Staying close to home? No, it appears there is another batch of babies. This set of parents are way more tolerant of me standing below to take pictures. The last time around the parents would swoop away and dive bomb me each time I approached. It’s nice to see the parents are more mellow especially as the only rental requirement of the nest is that I get a pic of the newborns.
photobackstory 