Guano, guano, everywhere

Update July 14, 2015:  The picture above was taken this morning just before the swallows tested their wings and flew the coop. They and their parents were gone all day but everyone is back tonight and tucked in for the evening.

When Jim and I got to Mom's in northeastern Ohio about Memorial Day, two swallows were building a nest on an outdoor light attached to her garage.  How pretty, we thought. How nice to be so up close and personal with nature. How fun it will be to have little baby birds peeking over the edge of the nest. How graceful to see swallows swooping about like in the movie Cinderella. 

Well it's all that. But it's also a a whole lotta bird poop all over the light fixture, the side of the house, and on the driveway below. Plus we get dive bombed every time we walk out the garage, which for me and Jim is many times a day. Those birdies literally come within inches of our heads, all the time squeaking something that sounds like "Get away, get away!"

Get away yourselves little birdies. You are lucky that the residents of this house are soft hearted.  

A swallow parent stands guard while two babies hope for food.  You can see the beak of a third baby t0 the right, and there may be one other hatchling in the nest as well.  We read that swallows have two broods per year and return to the same nest year after year.  Great.