I started a new job in mid-April and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it but it kicks my butt in the time-for-projects department so here we are, mid-summer, July 4th in fact (happy birthday USA!) and I haven’t done much for the last few months except work, which is not what this blog is about. But the swallows, at least, have been busy in the garden.
Here is our birdhouse. When we put it on top of the ladder near the fire pit, we didn’t actually think any birds would move in. But guess what? Swallows will nest pretty much anywhere that’s high up and protected.
Bird house in the garden
Swallows, as it turns out, are quite fascinating. According to Wikipedia they are not especially fast flyers, which is hard to believe when you see them swoop around and up and down and then straight into the bird house so fast you can’t believe they don’t hit the back wall, and they often enter a mutualist relationship with Ospreys, building their nests underneath the large, flat Osprey nests and benefitting from scraps while alerting their neighbors to potential predators.
Birdzilla.com has all kinds of fascinating facts about swallows, including that they spend more time on the wing than any other passerine birds; “assuming that it flies at the rate of a mile a minute, for ten hours a day, and lives ten years, it would fly 2,190,000 miles, or over 87 times around the earth; this is doubtless too high an estimate, but it is impressive, even if greatly discounted.”
But I think the most fascinating thing about swallows is that they are raising a family in our birdhouse.
Can you see me?
Can you see me now?
- Can you see me NOW?
How 'bout NOW?
How in the world did you get these cute pix? Yay for zoom! They are so cute. And I see our Osprey theory was correct, eh? (-;