Dancing on the Ceiling

It must have been a tough trip. The swallows have been dribbling in a pair or two at a time all week long. Saturday the barn was just swarming with them.

Saturday 10 May. A full house!
The swallows are a huge "rhythm of life" thing around the barn. Of course they're courting and setting up house now. The males put on their best show and the females pick out the one they like the best. They have an awful lot to say while all this is going on.

This looks like tons of fun
Sometimes they build new nests but they'll use last year's if they're still up. They tidy them up and maybe give them a personal touch.

See the horse hair woven into the nest? Their nests are made of mud.
Oh, and another huge thing about having the swallows around the barn? Each one on a typical day will eat between 800 and 900 bugs. And when they're feeding babies? Forget it! It's like rush hour from dawn to dusk. So...do the math. Twenty breeding pairs of swallows will eat maybe 34k bugs *every* day!