We've Gone To The Birds

A pair of lovely barn swallows took up residence in our wood shed this spring and as they tend to do they hatched five lovely baby swallows. Mountain Man wasn't sure if he should let them have a nest in the shed but as they were always serenading him he thought they were cute so allowed them to continue. 

He spends quite a bit of time in that shed as he had a lot of work to do on it and since it isn't full of wood right now most of his tools are in there. The birds became quite used to his presence and would often sit withing a few feet of where he was working. He of course thought this was pretty cool, but whenever I went to the shed they would scream at me and dive-bomb at me trying to make me leave. Silly birds. 

Well, about a week and a half ago these little beauties flew for the first time. They were so cute! Mountain Man saw them perched on the edge of the nest and made sure to leave the door open so they could fly. Which they did, and we eventually went back to working. Me to the garden and he back to work on finishing the shed. Closing up the eves and putting the tin on the roof. Pretty soon the only way into the shed for the birds was through the front door so we made sure to leave it open for them.

That is until a few days later when Mountain Man was in a hurry to leave for town and I was out in the barn milking. There I was walking up to the house with my milking pails and all of a sudden my head is surrounded by birds! They are yelling and making a horrible racket. Then they all few to the fence and landed there while continuing to scold me. What was the problem? The door to the woodshed had been closed! I opened it and in they flew. All 7 of them. I just shook my head and went about my day.

Later that evening Mountain Man being home he finished up putting some tools away and sat down on the deck for a breather. No sooner had he sat down than five little birds were flying around his head and chirping at him. Three of them hovering there about a foot from his face and making funny noises. He just stared at them in astonishment. Then it dawned on him what was up. He had closed the shed door and they couldn't get in. 

Later that evening we had a good laugh over our birdy adventures. He had closed the door to the shed thinking they weren't using it anymore as the nest had fallen down and they had been flying for at least a week now. Oh well! I guess it will stay open all summer now.