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Back from the equator. Each spring, barn swallows return
like clockwork to our 90-year-old bank barn from ports of call as distant
as Costa Rica and Argentina. We expect their return during the fourth
week of April, and we’re seldom disappointed.
Even this spring, after prolonged cold and a couple of
April snowstorms, including heavy flurries on April 23, they did not
disappoint us. The winter’s last hurrah on the 23rd, which left two inches
of snow atop Moosic Mountain, was their herald.
Several evenings later, a group of swallows swooped into
the barn, and within an hour they began checking former nesting sites
on beams in the goats’ quarters, unruffled, unannounced and about five
days late.
Once property rights were settled, the birds began flying
relays to the river for daubs of mud, and robbing straw from the goats’
manger (their use of straw reminds me of the way potters temper clay).
A week later, semi-circular nests that taper downward into cone shapes
were fastened onto joists and were ready for egg laying.
Before they leave like clockwork again in late August,
the “barns” will have raised two broods and sorely tried the patience
of the goats and my cat Sneezer, who instinctively ducks when he passes
the barnyard in mid-summer.
—Ed Wesely
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