One of the great things with living part-time on the country side is that you get to live close to nature. Very close in fact…. The bad thing is wild hogs and rats. Mutant rats with beaver size teeth. Oh well, I was to tell you about the good part. A swallow and a wagtail both decided to use our stable as a kinder garden. The wagtails nest was directly on the floor under some old branches and I could literally follow the development from egg, to hatching, to tiny little birds. The swallows where up under the roof. I didn’t see much of them only heard them constantly cry out for food. The kids ordering in every day! Not a bad life.
Although I kept a close look on the wagtails I missed when they left the nest. But the other day when I stood in the stable painting some chairs the swallows flying lesson started. The mother sat up under the roof far away from the nest making encouraging tweet tweet sounds and the tiny little swallows sat on the edge of the nest looking scared. Then the mother (how come I think it’s the mother?) flew to a beam closer to the nest and called out again. Soon one of the babies made a wobbly flight to her beam and soon the others followed. Except one. He stayed in the nest holding on for dear life! The mother tweet tweeted, the brothers and sisters tweet tweeted but nothing happened. I could almost see him fiercely shaking his head and saying “no way! “.
His brothers and sisters soon grew tired of him and started to fly about in the stable more and more confident and crying out to each other “look at me, hey look what I can do”. But the mother didn’t give up ( can you see now why I think it’s the mother?). She kept on tweet tweeting from different directions moving closer and closer to the nest. And finally when she was almost next to the nest he flew! A very wobbly flight – mayday, mayday request permission to do an emergency landing – I rushed forward – crash - down on the ground he went. And there he sat. The entire afternoon! No tweeting what so ever made him move. He just turned his back on them all looking like he was saying “ Been there, done that, didn’t like it”. When I went in for dinner he was still sitting there.
- come on! It`s fun! 
- No way!
Mayday! Mayday!The next morning when I looked out of my bedroom window I started to laugh. On the lawn a tiny little swallow came walking very erect and looking very proud. I have never seen anything like it before. And do you know what? I am sure it was my swallow turning his back on the whole flying thing altogether!
>Don`t forget to fasten your seatbelts for take off and landing folks!
>Take care
3 comments:
what a sweet story! poor little guy, probably got air sick!
What a delightful story Jeanette! I think you must be as mad as me imagining all the talk and all, going on between the birds. It is fascinating to watch nature especially when something happens that we didn't predict....say, like a WALKING bird that normally flies! I hope he realises soon that it's not too safe taking a stroll instead of being high up on the wing. You never know what feline eyes may be watching!
Sending you big hugs and smiles dear Jeanette, Angela.
I had a run in with a rat, myself, just yesterday. Living in the country has its minuses, but the plusses (like the birdies) out weigh them!
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