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Index of Subjects Hi Judy, it is good to hear from you. The house with multiple nests actually got four lovely chicks off but not on July first, like clockwork, as other years. There was a female still feeding and attending the young well after the big gathering and group departure. There were also chicks that fledged from the appletree house, which is the one that was completely empty when he cleaned it. Nature has ways to tear me up pretty quickly. I couldn't have kept them alive to get them to someone some where who might be able to save them. I think we have come to the conclusion the parent birds were either too young or too hungry to feed them or were killed somehow. There were so few flying things. I saw one going with small moths or flying ants. Looked too big to be food for themselves. I can imagine now what it will be what it is like to not have swallows at all. I don't like the image at all. Marg .................... Hello Marg: Last year I too had a Tree Swallow's nest box that had a similar ending with abandonment. Knowing that there were young in the nest by mid-June but adults had not been seen around the nest box for some days, I went to investigate. There were three nestlings in the box and two unhatched eggs, tragically the nestlings were either dying or already dead. They were featherless and still had their eyes closed. The largest of the nestlings - almost twice the size of its siblings - was on top of the others, having great difficulties just breathing and appeared to be close to death. It was painful to see. We never saw the adults again. This was the first time my swallow box had a failure in the many years I have been monitoring it but with a fair amount of rain during the swallow's breeding season here, flying insect numbers were not easily come by. Judy Tufts
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