By Leslie Cox; Saturday, June 25, 2016

Ever since I raised a baby barn swallow back in 1984, or thereabouts, I have been more than a little partial to this aerial wonder species of the bird world.

Barney, as our baby swallow was called, had fallen…or been pushed…out of its nest which was way, way up in the rafters of a warehouse at the Gold River pulp mill. There was no hope of putting the little guy back in its lofty home, so he was brought to me. (I was well-known in my small community for being a lover of animals who had played nursemaid to a number of critters over the years.)

The story of Barney warrants being made into a children’s book at some point in the future so I will not go into his story here. All I will say for now…Barney was an incredible little bird and because of him, I have insisted there always be a clean nesting house available in our garden every spring for a tree swallow couple.

And so we had another lot of swallow babies fledge again this year. Very cute! And quite fun to watch as they learned how to fly. Early into their practice solos, we had to keep an eye out for them as they came quite close to us a few times.

But slowly, their strength increased and they began to make longer, sweeping flights over the garden and out into the field behind us. We were hoping they were also practicing catching mosquitos in flight. With seven rain barrels set up to catch rain off the roof, there is a healthy population of mosquitos around here.

Today, the babies are still flying around with their parents. Smoothly graceful in flight, they are definitely one of the aerial wizards extraordinaire.