It's Sunday and it's raining!

A Photo a Day
Housemartins under the eaves of our house

It's Sunday and time for my contribution to Camera Critters ,hosted by Misty Dawn!

One Sunday, in June 2005 we had made plans to go out with a few friends on the motorbikes.
We were to meet at our house at 11am.
The weather wasn't glorious but it wasn't bad either.
The phone started to ring and various excuses were made...mostly the weather.
Now we don't mind setting out and taking a chance with the weather, it is all part of the fun.
Jon had been quite busy and had not had a Sunday off for a while, so this day was going to spent doing something productive.

Around 11am, after yet another "I don't really know......" phone call Jon was exasperated and we decided not to go after all and do some gardening. The hedges were in desperate need of cutting so we set to and worked through the day.

We worked as a team. Jon cut clipped the hedges, we loaded up the pick-up and whilst Jon clipped some more I drove the pick-up to the tip.
All in all I made 5 journeys that day, so you can tell how hard we worked.

Whilst we were working in the garden we became aware of ferocious activity in the sky.
Two housemartins were flying up to the eaves of our house with mud they were swooping down to snatch from the goose pond.

As dusk settled the nest was complete and the visitors settled in for the night.

Now the location of the nest was over the airbrick in our bathroom, so over the next few weeks when we were using the bathroom we could hear the noises from the nest.

When we heard extra noises we knew the eggs had hatched.

After a while we noticed the tiny heads peering out of the nest.

On one occasion I perched myself in the bathroom, on the steps and dangerously balancing on the windowsill and the sink I managed to take this photograph through the window.


Moments later, the parents flew back towards the house, suspecting danger, so this had been my one and only chance to capture the young chicks, days before they left for warmer places.

In 2006 they returned, but we didn't see them this year, I wonder if we will in 2008?
Watch this space!

The voice of ancient gossamer
rises still its ancient way
in the quiet thunder of eager wings
trying what the north winds say.

What do winds whisper in clever ears
that makes the time to go just right?
The wonder is the message comes
to all at once like second sight.

Preparation, patient, strong
born from the egg with what they need
each bird follows its primal plan
ten thousand years could not impede.

We came, once with reckless sway
and cut across the natural flow.
But now repentance pricks us on
as we repair the status quo.

Man and bird are strangely one
yet each cannot know the other.
Along the route soon remembered well
the wild and tame are somehow brother.

The goal is fixed in the mind as one.
All eyes peel the horizon away.
It's time to soar where long ago
all nature held its solemn sway.

Motion liquid below autumn clouds
a man-bird combination flies.
Like an ancient myth we integrate
and put sweet mystery in our eyes.

A wrong is righted heroically.
A beauty we have never known
gives hope our world at least in part
will reap the harvest we have modestly sown.

The voice of ancient gossamer
rises again its ancient way
in the quiet mystery of new born winds.
They know again what the north winds say.

From a poem by Owen Neill

Do visit her blog and see more lovely pictures.