Monthly Archives: July 2007

I’ve seen it happen over and over, but each time I’m amazed at how quickly the fledglings become accomplished flyers. Just a few days after venturing out of the nest, they are now out there swooping and dipping and diving … Continue reading →

The baby made it back home last night without a hitch. He showed up around 6:30, about 2 hours earlier than the adult birds usually go to bed. Instead of going back to the nest, he perched in a compartment … Continue reading →

Well, one of our babies flew this morning. He certainly didn’t do it in the standard way, though – after leaving the nest and flapping around a bit, he decided to land, but apparently didn’t quite know how to do … Continue reading →

As they get closer and closer to "launch date," the babies are becoming more rambunctious. Today one of our many visiting swallows landed on the ledge next to the nest. Well, the babies think that when another swallow flies in, … Continue reading →

Several people have asked me what the swallows sound like. They have a variety of different sounds. The babies make a "cheep, cheep, cheep" sound (fast, urgent) when they want to be fed. They have a different, slower, less urgent … Continue reading →

We expect the babies to fly within the next few days. I got some great photos of them today: And this one of Mom, who flew up and landed on the porch lamp right beside me (through the window) while … Continue reading →

The last couple of days have been particularly frustrating ones; on Friday, right before a major deadline, my primary computer (the Dell XPS supermachine for which I paid $2200 six months ago) went down completely due to a video driver problem, … Continue reading →

Okay, this is turning into the Bird Blog, but that’s okay. The birds are an important part of our lives these days. The two babies are growing fast now, which isn’t surprising – Mommy is probably giving them more food … Continue reading →

I’ve been thinking about how PETA, ELF and similar radical groups have given wildlife conservation a bad name, especially among political conservatives (which is ironic, given that conservation should, by definition, rightly be the province of conservatives). Those left-leaning groups seem … Continue reading →

  If you’ve been following these blog posts, you know that I spent the last two days playing mother to a tiny baby swallow who fell out of its nest early Tuesday morning. I thought I knew quite a bit about barn … Continue reading →