He must have a nest near here, I thought, and started to move away, looking down at my feet first; footing can be dangerous at the back side of a barge, with ropes and ridges and gaps and no fencing. And there, underfoot, was a mass of bird droppings. Directly above me, a few inches away, there was the nest. No wonder the parent was upset!
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| Swallow's nest, a neat little basket of babies. |
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| That's the tail of one of the parents. The other one was still worried about me. |
I moved to the far end of the barge and waited, hoping the parent would come back to the nest, but he waited me out, and I couldn't get farther away without swimming.
I left and walked down the docks instead. At a floating office (fishing charters, I think) now closed, I found another nest, this one with chicks big enough to peek over the edge. Noisy chicks; I heard them before I saw the nest.
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| Waiting for mom and dad with the catch of the afternoon. |
This pair of swallows was more relaxed, maybe because the fuel barge is beside the restaurant and the main docks, where there are 'way too many people. Down here, one swallow sat and watched me from a distance, while the other went to feed the hungry chicks.
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| Swallow, proudly proclaiming he's a White Wolf. I had left the office by then, and was back on the docks. |
We've had a pair trying to find a place to nest. I had to discourage them from building over our front door under the porch. They still come by every morning and evening but don't see them working any place else. We've set up a few small shelves under the eaves but that have been used in the past, but I guess they weren't to their liking. We do have nesting going on in the birdhouse on the floating garden. I haven't yet been able to determine if the pair is tree swallow or violet-greens. - Margy
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