03.28.07
Birds in a nest
Though we are only here two years, we have swallows who nest annually in our pump-house. It’s pretty messy in there though – the bird poo lands on the oil burner. Yuck. So this year M was determined to keep them out – though I was sorry. He’s putting mesh up on the space at the top of the door where they were getting in. Then he took down the nests they had built – what was in one of the nests but two tiny little bird skeletons. Two poor little chicks who didn’t make it last year, curled up dead together. It was sooooooooooooo sad. And now we are barricading out their surviving siblings who will fly all the way from Africa to come home and nest. Oh dear.
John of Dublin said,
March 28, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Wow, you should write children’s stories. I got slighty emotional there!
Mark Crowley said,
March 28, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Such a pity. However, humans have a right to a clean cosy nest too! I was amazed to discover recently that swifts, similar in appearance to swallows, can spend up to two years on the wing without landing! Two years! They can eat, sleep and mate on the wing. How cool is tha?. They need to land only to roost. Apparently their legs are not that great, and they are quite clumsy on the ground. I would be two if I was in the air for two years I suppose.
Tom said,
March 30, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Sarah,
That story was a a microcosm of modern Ireland. The real question is, shouldn’t their parents have been looking after them in the nest or did they expect welfare in the form of worms? If they survived would there then be an influx of more swallows squaking in a different swallow language? Would word spread that Sarah Carey, writer, blogger, bogger and blagger was also a philathropist and would they take advantage of your good nature?
Or maybe it was just a sad reminder that life isn’t always fair and bad things happen to good people (and creatures) just because of circumstance?
Tom