Tuesday 9 August 2011

Swallows' Opportunism

Last night, I tried to get into my loft - but when I switched the light on, the RCD tripped in the fuse box.

Today, I went to investigate and I think I found out why this happened:

Swallow's nest, Light and Swallow!

I seem to be intent on electrocuting the smaller of God's creatures. First a mouse, and now I don't hold out much hope for this swallow. Anyhow, the irony is that the loft space of the castle was entirely free of swallows. However, some months ago I replaced a ceiling. In the week this took, the swallows were opportunistic and bagsied this marvellous loft gaff. When in the end, I sealed up the final bit of ceiling, the swallows circled round where their entrance had been, and twittered excitedly. However, they are very smart birds. I left a door open deliberately so they could get to the loft hatch - and they solved the puzzle of how to get back into the loft space via the loft hatch to their nest in around 10 seconds.

Now when I go through the loft hatch, there are often swallows darting through at the same time. Once the swallows have left for winter, I will seal everything up again.

Anyhow, under the nest today I saw this:

Fledgeling 

It must have fallen out the nest. Am I correct in thinking this is doomed? My understanding is that there is no way back into the nest, or perhaps at a long stretch the parent will feed it on the ground? Anyhow, if anyone knows if and how I could try to save it, please let me know. It's already had one reprieve, I thought it was a bit of dirt on the floor, and just stopped myself kicking it at the last minute.

Bit of good last minute news. A friend on Facebook says the parents will feed it! :-)




2 comments:

  1. Can you get worms on eBay? In any case, when I inspected the following day, the fledgling was not there. So hopefully a good sign!

    ReplyDelete