Hidden Treasure

Remember earlier this summer when I posted about the Flora & Fauna at our property?  I talked about the bank swallows that had made a phenomenal number of nests in the bank we would eventually have to make into retaining walls.  I thought the  nests probably went about 3 feet into the bank.  Not so.  This weekend when we were working on the upper retaining wall again, we found a nest TEN FEET back from where the original front of the  bank was.

The arrow points to the hole where the nest is, and the right hand side of the lower wall is where the orginal bank was.  I am amazed at how much of that bank those tiny little birds dug out!  THe nest had three hatched eggs in it, and one that didn’t hatch.  After I took these pictures, I scooped it out onto a board so I could save it to show the girlies.

These are the nest and eggs close up.  The last is a picture with my watch for a size comparison.

   

Amazing little creatures!