A little over a month ago, Genevieve noticed that some birds were building a nest right under the eaves of our house, atop the house number. It was a muddy contraption suitable only for small birds, especially since there was little room upon the house number for anything larger than a canary or parakeet.

For a while it seemed as if the nest was abandoned, so I decided to take a look. I grabbed a mirror, stood on a chair, and peeked in. I saw four little, blue eggs.

My first thought was that if this nest really was abandoned (after all, it seemed so late to be nesting), then these are probably dead eggs. But, I thought better of removing them or the nest. "Who knows, something might happen."

It couldn't have been much more than a week later, I turned to look at the nest as I was coming out the garage and noticed a small bird sitting in it. I guess some birds do nest and hatch this late. Either that, or this hen is hoping against hope.

About two weeks after that, I peered into the nest again and saw four little, sleeping chicks. Hope and life springs (um, summers?) eternal. As I was looking at them, the parents decided to return. Oh, were they ever angry at me. I didn't disturb the nest any, I was just looking. I had no plans of interrupting anything, so I left the birds to tend to their young.

I did, however, try to take as good a look at the parent birds as I could. They looked kind of like a swallow. So, I set out to try to identify them. It took a while of looking at pictures of South Dakota birds, who nests in this area (and when they do), but I think these are probably Barn Swallows. The picture of the bird on that page, and the markings seem to match what I saw that afternoon.

Today is about another week after, and I finally took some pictures. The nest above is one of the pictures. Below, you'll see the mirror reflection of the chicks in the nest. Now, I am no ornithologist. If someone out there who reads this is one, or more an expert on birds than I, maybe you can confirm my identification or correct it; please do!