Bonding with the Barn Swallows: Nature's Best Teachers

Barn Swallows, up close and personal! Includes 117 full color photos, 56 of them featuring baby Barn Swallows from hatchling to fledgling ages. The author shares her phenomenal experiences with three broods of Barn Swallows nesting at arm's length from her front door in West Virginia, U.S. If you love photos of baby birds, this is the book for you to have on hand. Also included are photos of the parent Barn Swallows defending the nest, incubating the eggs, feeding the babies, and posing on the porch rail. There are also detailed photos of five individual juvenile Barn Swallows perching on the utility wire eleven days after leaving the nest. Each juvenile displays slightly different markings, and there are variations in the degrees of color saturation of the plumages. Contains interesting facts and theories about Barn Swallow breeding and nesting behavior, backed up by the author's own observations and photos. Learn why a male Barn Swallow perches near the nest at night while the female is on it. And why do parent swallows vacate the nest at night during the last week before the babies leave the nest? Yet this book goes beyond proven, scientific facts. Read about how one particular Barn Swallow communicated to the author by twittering to her from the porch rail and by his body language on the utility wire. And find out what he was communicating, as revealed by a future event. Barn Swallows are far more than just cute birds. They are teachers! Learn about the twelve lessons that Barn Swallows offer us as members of Humanity. Each lesson is a principle that the swallows demonstrate by their behaviors, such as resourcefulness, diligence, and community. There are nine others! Barn Swallows are wild birds, but in the author's opinion, they are semi-domesticated. They have lived in close proximity to humans for many centuries and are known for building their nests on human-made structures. The book refers to a theory on why this is so and describes two real-life examples that support this theory. Barn Swallows are welcomed in many neighborhoods because they are superb at controlling the flying insect population. Yet these birds are so much more than insect-eaters. You will be amazed and inspired by these precious birds, whom the author calls "little drops of Heaven."