Last of the swallows

Rocco witnessed the hatching of our last (as far as I can tell) nest of swallows last week.

Since then there has been a great deal of chittering and swooping and diving and feeding of the little ones. Eventually on Monday they left the comfort of the nest for the first time and settled down on one of the beams above his haynet.

Result: every day the Boy was liberally spattered with bird poo. He didn't really mind - much. We just brushed it off and waited for the next lot to appear.....and mornings when I went in to the stable it was easy to see where the little ones had roosted for the night..... a snowstorm of little poos on the floor beneath that place........

It's fascinating to watch how they develop from the time they leave the nest till they finally 'leave home'.

For the first day or so they just sit; then they get more adventurous and turn round on the beam; then a day or two later they hop along the beam a little; then they flap their wings a lot; then they muster up enough courage to fly from beam to beam --- and the most difficult bit is the landing on the other end....... for the first few occasions they miss and have to hover around in front of where they expected to land until they manage to get there with a little more flapping and twittering.....

Then by the end of about a week they fly happily from beam to beam until, all of a sudden - it seems - they are out and gone and away under the trees and across the fields. For the first few nights they still come home to roost.
But soon they are confident enough to stay out - and they are gone: indistinguishable from all the other swallows about the place.