Our birds are back!

This is the third Spring/Summer our birds have come and lived on our porch. One of them arrived last week and sat above our door as if he/she was checking out its old nest and making sure it was still a safe spot to lay eggs. This week, two birds are perched on the nest. I do not know if they have laid their eggs or not yet, but both birds seem dedicated to their nest, so it would not surprise me if they are already there. When it was cold and rainy over the weekend, a third bird appeared...maybe to help keep the nest warm for the baby eggs. We have suspected that our birds are barn swallows, so I did a little research and have decided they are. Here are a few facts about barn swallows:

• The barn swallow is about six inches long, and has blue wings and head. It has a orange throat and forehead and orange chest and underside. It has a deeply forked tail like the letter V. Males and females look alike.
• They live in all parts of North America. The barn swallow winters in the tropics south to Argentina.
• The barn swallow only eats bugs. (That is a benefit for us...keeps them off our porch.)
• Barn swallows often mate in the air. (Talented!) Both parents build the nest. Nests are made of mud and lined with grass and feathers. The female has 4 to 6 eggs. Both parents care for the young. The eggs take around two weeks to hatch and the chicks will fly when they are about three weeks old. The female may produce 2 groups of chicks in one summer. (Ours have done this too.)
  
• They travel by day, eating as they fly. They can even feed their young while they are in flight! They can travel as many as 600 miles a day. (That is an amazing distance it seems to me!)
• (From - http://depts.washington.edu/natmap/facts/barn_swallow_k6.html)

We leave their nest up through the fall/winter, so I guess that it why they return...their home is always ready and waiting for them. Even though there is always quite a mess of bird poop on one corner of our porch, I am always excited to see them each spring/summer and see the babies when they are born and as they start leaving the nest. Here are the babies learning to fly and leave the nest last year.
Here is our post from last year about them - http://calebandella.blogspot.com/2009/05/our-family-of-birds.html

We will have our own little guy soon...actually probably much sooner than my due date of (April 20th). I am sure glad he will not be born and leave home only after three weeks... Look forward to meeting you little guy!