Broken Home

Looking through the window I can see the rain falling outside as I write. However, despite this recent wet spell the effects of the long drought continue to reverberate.
Quite early on in the Spring a news item featured the difficulty swallows were experiencing trying to build their nests with next to no mud available to glue them together. The Big Boss himself had commented on the fact that he'd never before seen swallows spending time in the pigs' wallows. Clearly they were fetching out what mud they could.
In previous summers we have had up to half a dozen pairs of these birds nesting in the horses' stable barn and usually a few more in the other outbuildings. This year we have just three breeding pairs. One of these chose to refurbish an old nest above the water drinker in Ritz's stable. Since the end of last week the parents have been noisily and constantly flitting in and out trying to keep up with their young family's voracious appetite. I spent a few moments watching them whilst Ritz was eating his breakfast yesterday morning.

Mucking out later in the afternoon I noticed how quiet it was. Swallows are the chirpiest of birds. Gunner stood up at Ritz's drinker. I misunderstood and, thinking he was thirsty, offered him a bucket of water. He didn't want it but returned to the drinker. Following him I looked to see what had caught his attention. There in the water lay two drowned hatchlings. Looking up I saw why. Their nest had collapsed. Their frantic cheeping for attention and food presumably caused the frail fabric to give way.
The parents spent the night in the barn.
This morning theyere noisily investigating all the beams and corners. Broken homes can be very traumatic.