Monday, April 25, 2011

Cliff Swallows

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As the weather and the scenery at Bastrop were really beautiful that we decided to stay an extra night and so we didn't get home until yesterday. Until I can sort out my photos from the trip, here are some pictures I took of Cliff Swallows building nest under a highway flyover near Bastrop State Park.



If you look carefully at this photo, you can see that the bird's face is partially obscured by its cargo of mud.


In a normal year, the swallows probably don't have to fly far to collect mud. However, given how dry the area is this year, they must be traveling quite some distance to find their next-building material. Since the nests appear to use two different colors of mud, the swallows presumably travel to different sites to collect it.
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3 comments:

Dave said...

Well spotted Jeff

I guess the vibration must me non existant from the traffic above? either that or they are very tolerant.

Jeff said...

I'm sure there's a lot of noise and vibration, Dave. I suppose they just put up with it!

Dave said...

breeding IS that important. Still awaiting MY Swifts over the garden here in the UK, Anytime next week.