Hatched!

There's an old saying:  "Busier than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs."

It cannot hold a candle to the busy state of our birds right now.  The eggs have hatched. There are babies in those nests. 

Babies with hungry little mouths that need feeding.

Dad Bluebird stopped just long enough to catch his breath, one huge insect-for-lunch still in his beak.  We know where he is nesting, so I keep trying to sneak up on these birds to get some photos. They are one of my favourites.

Robins have nests everywhere it seems. A few years back, one even nested in the artificial trees we use as jump decoration in the indoor riding arena!  This one found a nice snug spot over the light fixture on the porch at Beaver cottage.

Our friend Jill is currently playin adoptive mom to a baby robin, dubbed Batman (not Robin) -- she's writing about the adventure on her Blog and finding it very hard work feeding just one. Our mom has three in the nest that we can spot. Maybe four. She's working her little toes off bringing them worms and insects, and was none too pleased to have people occupying "her" cottage this weekend.

In the stable, the barn swallows have their babies hatched too.  The parents are constantly swooping through the barn with hard-caught insects.  It's been calculated that barn swallows fly about 600 miles per day just coursing back and forth after insects.  No wonder Mom took this little moment to just sit and admire her offspring!


 All along the fence-line the tree swallow nests are also busy -- Carol was putting up some anti-deer fencing near one nest, and got thoroughly mobbed until they decided she wasn't out to bother them!

Anyone interested in photography finds this a magic time of year -- the birds are returning over and over to the nests, so the opportunity to get that one wonderful photo is excellent.