Last year I enjoyed watching Barn Swallows nesting and hatching babies in our barn. I even got to watch a pair build a brand-new nest constructed of mud and straw.
One steamy day I was outside when my mom asked me if I had seen that a Barn Swallow nest had fallen down. Quickly I ran to the barn and, sure enough, there lay a Barn Swallow nest on the ground! It was the new nest that the parents had worked so hard to build! Around it were five scraggly baby swallows with just a little grayish fuzz on them!
I picked them up one by one and saw that two of them had been killed when they hit the ground, but the rest of them seemed to be fine. The parents were flying around sounding very distressed. I quickly asked my mom to guard the babies from cats, then ran to the garage and grabbed a ladder, a hammer, some nails, and a small plastic container.
When I got back to the barn, I set up the ladder and nailed the container to the beam right where the nest had been. Then I put the remaining nesting materials into the container. Last of all I gently laid the three babies inside it.
A few days later I got a ladder and looked into the “nest.” Sure enough, three little mouths popped over the edge when they heard me. Later that afternoon, I saw the parents flying to the nest with bugs and worms in their beaks.
The babies grew and grew until they left the nest. It was fun to save the lives of three of God’s little creatures!
Barn Swallow Rescue
