Today’s the day!

Today is the day the barn swallows fledged! Morning arrived sunny and warm. While hanging bedsheets on the clothesline, I overhead the familiar squeeks and warbles of barn swallows. (I affectionately call them “barnies”.) They are one of my favorite birds and I anxiously anticipate their arrival in May. This year, they chose various mud nests in the horses’ run-in shed from years past ; once selected, they updated and improved them. After laying eggs, brooding and feeding youngsters, today was the day for the young ones to try their wings. Can you just imagine being snuggled tightly in a nest with your siblings, squirming and jostling for a good comfortable position, competing for the insect tidbits brought by parents. As the space becomes too difficult to manage, the young birds will look elsewhere to reside. Today with encouragement from their parents, they hesitated, but finally spread their wings and dropped into the air. I can imagine what it must have felt like to go from such cramped quarters to the freedom of the air and the wide world outside. There were eight of them swooping and diving, benching and turning, up high and then down low over the ground to just rise again over the pasture fence. As I hung my sheets, they would fly low over my head, squeaking exuberantly to each other; the sheer delight was evident. It appeared to me that the parents were showing them how to swoop, dive and rise in the air. Sometimes they would land on the farmhouse roof, and then just as quickly, take off again, enjoying the aerial acrobatics that are their nature to own. What a great start to one’s day, both for me and them.