For the birds

We have swallows outside our apartment. They've built this lovely nest, although there's a group of four who attend to it or at least look on while others do the heavy lifting. Not sure what that means for their social life; there could be a Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice thing going on...hard to say.

Happy little chatty swallows, all with the runs. Seriously, our sidewalk is pelted with bird doo. And they're building something else, I think, around the back, because you can follow the trail. Either that, or they're getting their building materials from that side of the field.

That is one of the downsides of living in the middle of a protected wetland. Our manager can't remove the nests, or so she said last year. We thought the nest was charming last year, but then, there were only two birds and they held off on the metamucil.

They also abandoned three of the eggs. We're kind of hoping that doesn't happen again, although we're not wildly excited about having baby birds outside our front door.

Frankly, I don't care much if there's bird leavings on the sidewalk. I do care when my car looks like it's been shelled. I counted 21 hits before I washed it, and those were the larger ones.

We're parking a bit away. Hope Cecelia, Stanley, Eliza, and Bertram appreciate it.