Swallows, Sparrows and Barley Straw

This was in my draft folder. Whether on the computer or in the real world, I have fragments of stories, poems, songs, recollections nearly everywhere. It's almost time for the swallows to be coming again, so I thought I'd post this with an update. My wee pond has creatures in it. I was delighted to discover something with legs and a tail when I was fishing for pond scum. I know tidiness is meant to be its own reward, but surely a newt is a particular gift.

I have a swallow's nest outside the window where I write. It is my latest excuse for why I don't write. The swallows are not meant to be there. Swallows nest inside buildings--all the guide books say so. They must have forgotten to tell these two. The nest at first was a cup-like construction beneath the eave, atop the drain spout. Almost like a building. The nest grew, as the family expanded, into a sturdy bowl. It survived rain in buckets and a hail storm in what should have been spring and they persevere despite cold winds. 

Conviction

The right metaphor

sturdy as a swallow

stubborn as a swallow

his grace on the wing

so much admired

born of conviction

each wingbeat matters

 

They are my swallows now just as the hollyhocks and the tomatoes and the hawthorn hedge are mine: given to me to look after as best I can. The swallows don't require much of me. I suspect they would rather I wasn't here at all. They don't visit the bird feeder with the hoi polloi of the bird world, taking their food on the wing hoovering up flies and such. So I need them more than they need me. Just like the secretive thrushes that leave behind the empty snail shells in the flower bed in the far corner of the ground now sheltering among sturdy alders and one ramshackle pine, a relic of some earlier time when other people and plants called this spot home.

The gable ends of the house host house martin nests. One gable end now sports a second nest. Because we sit in the middle of fields and a nearby moss, we attract a variety of birds. They eat all the seeds I put in the bird feeder and sit on the trees sometimes chattering at me when I'm in their garden. A romantic might imagine it is bird song of gratitude. I think they are either complaining about the food or the service. It is perhaps just as well we do not speak each other's language.

The barley straw came from a hard working neighbour. It went into the pond to discourage filamentous algae build up. It did its hard working best for the strawberries and the potatoes and was sitting in a sheltered area awaiting its next assignment when a pair of sparrows discovered a patch of it underneath the swallow's nest. Their discovery might have gone unnoticed except for the fierce efforts of the swallow to send the sparrows away--dive bombing and chattering, his tiny frame all grim determination. Of course I joined the fray for my swallows. I shooed the sparrows away until I realised they weren't predators, just barley lovers.  I scooped up the straw that had drawn them in and put it a safe distance from the nest.

This morning there were about two dozen sparrows after the barley straw. I had not moved the mother lode of it, so temptation was still too close. The swallow was fluttering and chattering against an army of sparrows. I filled up the bird feeder. As any mother knows, a distraction is almost as good as a remedy.  While the sparrows stuffed their little beaks, I moved the barley straw closer to the bird feeder--and, critically, further from the swallow's nest.