Cliff Swallow Nests

Cliff Swallow





We took the boat out this morning and found two cliff swallow nests.

Cliff Swallow Babies

We took the boat down under the bridge to check up on the cliff swallow nests. Fewer babies than we expected, but we were happy to see three nests had hatchlings in them. We are certainly getting an education with this year's hatchings. While we were watching, one of the baby birds intentionally turned itself around so its rump was sticking out the opening of the nest and pooped. That's what is shown in the bottom picture. It's not an adult heading into the nest. We didn't know about this behavior, and we'll do a little research to verify what we saw, but it sure seemed intentional to us. What a great way to keep the nest nice and tidy! We have watched the adult wrens carry the fecal sacs from their nests, but this was even more impressive.

Swallows

Cliff Swallow

Barn Swallow


We took the boat out again to keep track of the swallows that live under the bridge that goes over the stream that feeds Lake Nelson. Both the barn swallows and the more rare cliff swallows appeared to be caring for fledglings. We could occasionally see a baby cliff swallow through the opening of the nest.

Cliff Swallows Debating Nest Furnishings

While not the sharpest photos we've ever posted, we had to put these up because what happened made us both laugh out loud at the same time. It depends on which one of us tells the story as to who is the male and who is the female (we can't tell them apart.) Chris was watching with the bins and Mike had the camera. One bird is in the nest just sitting there with some white fluffy material for the nest. The other flies in and looks at the mate and the material. Then it takes it away from it. We both assumed it was just taking it to add to the nest, but without much hesitation, it dropped it right out. That's when we both laughed out loud and, of course, had our anthropomorphism moment talking about the interaction between the two. "No, honey, we won't be using that."

In our house, Chris has made all the design decisions since she got rid of the beer keg lamp Mike had in college, so that's why she assumes it's the female doing the discarding. Mike just thinks in the bird world, the males are dominant.

Cliff Swallow Nests

It's been a long time since we had an opportunity to get the boat in the water due to hot weather and a nice vacation. There have been a lot of reports of cliff swallows in the area, and we had seen the beginnings of these nests about a month ago. Our plan was if the weather cooperated, we would head out in the boat very early to check up on them. We were happy to see a colony of about 10 nests and a lot of activity.

Cliff Swallows building nests

While out in the boat, we often see barn swallows with nests under the bridge.  Today, we saw some Cliff Swallows building nests on the side of the bridge.  We watched for a while as they carried mud over to build the nests.  These are actually photos of two different nests, one just being started and another partially completed.