Barn Swallow tragedy

Today, yet another baby bird catastrophe at my neighbors.  She has a lot of Avian activity over there and not all of it positive, as you may have noticed!!

Let me preface todays' catastrophe with what occurred earlier in the summer:  A Barn Swallow pair had built a nest in June, up near the ceiling of her side porch.  They raised a brood of chicks (mostly successfully) except for one baby who got stuck in the nesting material trying to fledge & died before my neighbor noticed.  During the time I helped her rescue the baby 'Says Phoebe's', I also removed the dead baby from that nest.  

Undeterred by the casualty, the Barn Swallow pair built a second nest on the opposite side of the porch & were busily raising a second brood of babies.  

Until this morning ~ when the nest fell down, babies & all.

That's when my neighbor called me (local bird whisperer!! haha)  We debated trying to put the babies back up in the original, first nest but they looked so "developed" we decided to leave them be & hope they would be encouraged by the accident to fledge the nest.

Big mistake:

By late afternoon, our resident Cooper's Hawk picked off three of them before we could intervene and save them. I only noticed because I was out with my camera (photographing the garden) & heard the parents distress.

Above, greed meets reality.  He had one baby in each talon before landing on the street ~ because that was just a little too ambitious even for easy pickings.

We were totally SICK about it.  Out of four babies, only one remained, huddled tight into the corner of the porch.  So we did what we should have done from the beginning ~ put him up in the first nest.  :(

 

Edited on 8/6/18:

Happy to report the lone living baby is being cared for by his parents & is still in the nest as of today.  Obviously they were not ready to fledge.  If only we could have a "do-over...."

Comments

[Joy]

Kathleen .. this was so sad .. but nature is just that .. nature.
We had a session of such nature, a few years ago which "guilted" us for a while. We have the Goldfinch feeders .. of course Goldfinches feed .. but then so did a sparrow hawk (we think) feed on said Goldfinches .. we felt as if we some how initiated the dinner chime for the hawk but it was just the one occasion thankfully over so many years of Goldfinch feeders here .. what can you do ?