Flight of the Swallows

For two months now, a pair of swallows have been taking care of babies on our porch. Despite our sitting there talking, they swooped and chattered in front of us and across our line of sight, all the while taking care of babies who peeked out over the lip of the nest to see what was going on in their world. Down below them lay the two cats, Gwen and Nickie, in their respective porch chairs, and I held my breath daily as we waited for a fledgling to fall into a cat's waiting paws.

Instead.... Thursday morning I got up to find not three but FOUR little swallow fledglings on the wire outside the porch, chattering away to their proud parents! I snapped some shots as they practiced flying up and down the wire, and then as they all flew away towards the pasture! What pleasure to see them safely launched into the wide world. Like last year's clutch, they have joined the Big Bird Flock to make their own ways, and now our porch has grown strangely silent again.