The Swallows

It has been a very busy week here with our Swallow families. This year, the Violet-Green Swallows took up residency in five of our birdhouses. During the first weekend of July, all five house had hungry babies and the parents were feeding them from Sunrise to Sunset every night. But within the last week, three sets of babies have left the nests. The house pictured above is our newest house that we just added this Spring. It is still full of hungry babies, including this one looking out for the returning parents.

This swallow house, hung on the front side of our house, is the other still with occupants.

This was the first house we put up many years ago. It was very busy this Spring but now stands empty.

This house still had chicks early yesterday morning. I was going to take a picture of the two fat chicks who kept looking out the door hole, but didn't have my camera in hand. When I came back to look later Sunday, the house was empty!

And this is the other recently deserted house. The Violet-Green Swallow are still around, but are most noticeable early in the morning and in the evenings as they swarm the skies around our house for bugs.

And our Barn Swallow babies, who flew for the first time on Monday, July 4th, are now mostly gone from the nest for good. The parents however have been seen doing a little touch-up work on this nest. We think they are doing some minor repair work in preparation for the female laying a second set of eggs.