Taking flight with young swallows

LAST week a reader wrote to give me a fascinating account entitled, The Apprenticeship of Swallows, recounting the drama she saw unfold from her apartment window.

I cannot do better than recount it, largely in her own words.

Day 1: Today, four newly-fledged swallows have left the nest and sit, huddled together, on the high wall behind an old store room where they were born. Clearly, they have been ordered to stay put and not move. The parent birds spend five or six hours flying back and forth, feeding them every two or three minutes. There is much twittering during these brief seconds of feeding. Occasionally, a bumble bee droning past distracts the chicks and they move around, craning their necks to follow its movement. So much to be seen on the first day out in the world!