Three tiny swallow tails hang out over the nest. Like babies everywhere, the little birds are veritable poop machines but either mom and dad instantly trained them well, or they hatched out knowing not to foul their own nest. Instead, they are making quite a splat at our front door.
Fortunately, the grownups knew to build to one side. Their nest is smack-dab on the lintel, to be sure, but to the right as you face the door – away from the doorknob and leaving a fair amount of free space for large human homeowner and visitor feet to enter and leave without stepping in the guano pile.
We have been keeping sheets of cardboard at the strategic landing site, but even though we change it every day, it’s hard to keep up. So far, no one has overstepped the boundary between ‘safe’ and ‘sorry’ and, also so far, no one has done anything but oooh and aaah at the nest and the babies. There are three little ones, I think. I haven’t climbed up to see. When Susan Waters was here a few weeks ago, she did get up there to feel around. She thought there were four eggs. And there could very well be four youngsters. It’s hard to tell with tails.
Mama Swallow is pretty skittish. As soon as someone opens our gate on the way in, or turns the doorknob on the way out, off she goes. I don’t know if Papa Swallow is a doting dad or not. Unlike our Kitchen Garden Swallows, these two don’t seem to hang out within sight so we can watch them taking turns at their parenting duties. I’ve only seen Mama. Perhaps she’s a single parent.
Whatever her status, her babies are well-behaved. I don’t know if that’s all instinct or if there’s some training going on. It’s hard to tell with swallows. Whatever the reason, though, they have good manners and that’s a fact!
It’s the mom who removes the fecal sacs from the nest. She does this instinctively, not through training 😉