We had barn swallows take up residence by our front door. We planned to take down the nest, but we were too late. It already had baby birds in it. So we waited them out. They all flew away last weekend, so we finally got to clean up our front step. Fly, baby birds! (And next time, try the barn.)
And then they were gone.
No more nest.
No more poop. Yay!
Listen up, yo. I’m sure you think of yourselves like this. Sorta poetic and all.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
I’ll tell you what, though. You keep trying to build a nest in my dryer vent? I’ll be singing this song.
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
Fair warning.
For just a few hours one day in October, my yard was filled with thousands of birds. When I first pulled into my driveway, I noticed the grass in my yard was black. Then I looked again. My grass wasn’t black. My grass was covered with black birds. As I neared the garage, they flew off in a mass. I parked the car, grabbed my cameras and followed them around the yard.
They flitted about and flew from tree to tree in droves. It was fascinating and a little creepy in a Hitchcockian way.
They were so high in the trees, I figured there was no way they could hear me over their own noise. But as I walked through the yard, it seemed as if I disturbed one and set them off to swarm away in a group to the next tree. At that moment, the chirping would stop, and all I could hear was the fluttering of wings. (I’d also get that dippy feeling in my stomach that maybe I should duck or run for cover.) Then the chorus would start again.
I listened and watched for about an hour. By the time I brought the kids home from school, all the birds were gone.
