The usual thing to do is to refer to interesting natural phenomena happening around the house as “back-yard” nature, but for us, interesting stuff has been happening in the front yard.
The most surprising event was acquiring a nesting pair of swallows. They chose to locate their nest in a corner of the house right next to the garage door, and very close to the front door of the house. We’ve had plenty of nesting birds in close proximity before, but the swallows’ behavior has been unique. They are extremely active birds, flying around in all directions. Unfortunately, with the nest right next to the picture window, the swallows made numerous collisions with it, which is never a good sound.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been close to nesting swallows, but if you get too close to them, they dive-bomb you. Whenever either of us would spend any time in the front yard, we’d start hearing this whoosh sound as both adult swallows would dive-bomb us in an effort to keep us away from the front of our own house. Needless to say, this made it a bit difficult to invite people to the house (though it would deter the JWs at least). While we were on our weekend jaunt, the swallows apparently packed up and left. I assume the means the nestlings have fledged. We still have the nest, though.
In other news, our neglect of the front garden seems to be having the desired effect. In an effort to help out the monarch butterflies, of which we’ve seen none for some years, I stopped pulling up the milkweed. So now, we’ve got a healthy infestation of milkweed in the garden, but it’s paid off. We’ve seen the first monarch butterflies to visit our properties in years.
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