Wrong Again!

A couple of weeks back I thought we'd witnessed the last of the swallows leaving their nest and flying off. But just a few days later, when I was mucking out the stables, I heard a familiar "chirrup, chirrrrup" and, sure enough, there in the beams above Ritz's stable was another nest of just-hatched little ones!

And then, walking into the old stalls to muck out the quarantined pigs just a short while later - lo and behold - the same noise and yet another just-hatched nest! The parents have been busily flying to and fro, feeding them up, for the past 10 days or so and both families are just about ready to leave their nests - which will be a relief for Ritz, who has been snowed on increasingly as the chicks have been growing - for a nearby beam from which, in another couple of days or so, they will start flying lessons.

That means it's going to be well into the first week in September before they are confident on the wing: another week or so of roosting at night on their safe beam before they'll be grown up enough to completely leave home. Which in turn means they will probably be flying back to Africa for the winter before they are much more than a month or two old.

If that doesn't qualify as one of nature's wonders, I don't know what does.

Meanwhile, one of nature's other little wonders - the duck we fondly know as Jemima - has just been for another week's holiday in the Poultry Palace whilst her 'family' have been sojourning at a delightful camping Platz over the other side of the country. It seems that, at just over two years old, she is beginning to grow up. Although she did boss all the others about for a little while, and comandeered the pond - for a little while - she was really quite quiet all week (for Jemima) and seemed content to snooze in the the dappled shade for much of the day. On the other hand, maybe she's just been here often enough now to feel almost 'at home' so doesn't need to make such a noise and fuss? Whichever - when Jack and Carrie turned up to collect her on Sunday she was in no great hurry to leave and had to be picked up an carried to her travelling box!