Note (đť… ): Although this post is largely about swallows, I couldn't resist sneaking in some music.
I love a great variety of music and was, as I started putting this post together, in the mood for some of the kind of tunes I remember seeing on TV as a kid.
Your tastes my be very different than mine, and you may not like my choices at all. Then again, you may not know anything at all about this style of music and enjoy a very brief exposure to it.
These attachments are all on separate windows so you can click out of them, or click back to the post while they are playing.
I learned the other day that a pair of swallows had made a nest in our potting shed.
Notice that the present nest appears to have been built on the top of an earlier one.
These are amazing birds.
Sitting still, they may not seem very special, but they have remarkably large wings for their body size, can beat said wings 15 times per second and move between 9 and 11 meters per second as well. Their eyes are especially large and somewhat unusually shaped and give them exceptional sight which they need to catch the insects that make up their preferred breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.
As if that is not enough, these birds are also musical. Mom and dad both sing of course. Their songs have been described on Wikipedia as a blend of a chirp, a whine and a gurgle.
This new generation that I have photographed and begun to show you in this post, has something even more special going for it. (this is the tongue-in-cheek portion of the post) They seem to be musical talents with an unusual taste for retro music. And, young as they are, they've already started their own group. They call themselves, what else? The Swallows.
You may have learned from a post about bees that I did more than a year ago, that bees like disco music. I gave you an example in that post with lyrics by the Gee, Bees.
Well, I've discovered that these swallows are much more laid back than bees and like nothing more than doo-wop. It's true. And these four are so cool, it just drips from them. (Well, something is dripping from them anyway.)
The link below will take you to one of their favorite songs. They're into beak-syncing. As always, it's on a separate window so you can click back and watch them perform (roughly the first half of the photos) as you listen. For a doo-wop fan, it's pure gold...
-Ruben and the Jets. (1968)
Check 'em out...
Not only a great sound, but cool choreographed moves too...
They may be musical prodigies, but Mom and Dad still bring home the bacon for them, so to speak.
Here's a behind the scenes look into the private lives of this talented family.
Finally today, I have some interesting pictures to show you that didn't turn out quite the way I wanted them to. But they are interesting.
I don't know how this first one happened. It's like a double exposure. The nest in on a beam in the back of the shed and there are no lights in there.
I took this without a flash, which caused it to have a long exposure, 3/5 of a second.
As I said earlier, I learned that swallows are extremely fast. Deceptively so.
I took this picture on the 'bird-watchers' setting. It does not allow a flash to be used. Exposure on this one was 1/8 second.
These two were both shot at 1/5 second.
The parent in this one, taken right after the previous photo, seems to just appear from out of a whirlwind. You can still see a hint of its movement, even as it comes to rest. The other interesting thing I discovered about them is that it takes only a split second for them to feed the chick and then to leave the nest again. They are living so fast that it's amazing.
I had a great time over the last couple of days, sitting in the shed and watching the drama of bird life unfold. When I got tired of watching the nest last night, I left the shed by the path through the garden, rather than climbing the south stairway directly to our floor. I met one of the parents as it sat on a clothesline, watching for bugs to come by. A much more labor saving method than constantly flying in search of them.
They don't appear to be particularly impressive at rest, do they?
On the wing however, they are gorgeous creatures. Very impressive wings.
I know there are probably doo-wop fans out there, (somewhere) who, after listening to The Swallows perform, are aching for just a little more.
If you are among them, here is one that will both ease and intensify that ache. This, like the earlier one I attached, was written as a tribute to doo-wop, a la Zappa, of course. (from 1968)
Doo-wop originated in the 1940's and gained huge popularity in the 1950's and early sixties.
One of the most famous doo-wop mainstream tunes was this one
Doo-wop was huge in its day.
Even movies, like this one, Little Shop of Horrors, 1986, remembered doo-wop....Take a look.
I hope that some of you made it all the way through. -djf
