Swallow Trouble

We had four swallow houses with families this year. The house outside of Dad's office had the "early" family. The swallow babies hatched much earlier in that house than in the other three houses. Those youngsters  have already fledged and the house now sits silent for another year. The other three swallow houses are currently a flurry of activity. Each house appears to have three babies and the parents are busy feeding them from dawn to dusk. Tonight, after we returned from our neighborhood 4th of July potluck, I spied a baby swallow on the ground near the remaining potted dahlias. It came from either the round blue house or the white & blue house. I decided it came from the white & blue house since that one was a bit closer. We got out the ladder and I proceeded to plop the swallow back into the house. Well, all heck broke loose when I did. The next thing I knew, three baby swallow came shooting out of the house and started flying all over the vicinity - but not very well. We watched them fly and it soon became apparent that none of them knew how to fly back into the house. We left for a while to give them some privacy. When I came back in an hour, one baby was under the car in the garage, one was next to the heat pump box and the other was back by the dahlias! So this time I took down the house. I carried all three babies to the house and popped them back inside. Then I hung the house back up. I went back inside. After an hour I went to check on them. I found two of the babies back on the ground and one looking out of the house! Now it was about 7 PM. So, for the next 2 hours until dark, I kept picking up two wayward babies and stuffing them back into the house. Then I would wait for 1/2 hour and go back outside to check on them. Two babies were always on the ground. Finally at dusk, I wasn't able to find anyone outside of the house. I think all 3 were inside sleeping away. Hopefully tomorrow they will stay in or learn to fly and leave the house for good.