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Ozzie and Harriet Aka Barn Swallows

     It is one of those stories you contemplate over a morning cup of coffee or while sitting around with nothing else to talk about.  And for some unknown reason the story seems to stay with you and is a fun thing to think about. 

     Having grown up around barns and sheds and various other farm buildings, I have naturally been exposed to swallows.  They were mostly ignored as some, small, dark bird that flew nearly into my head when I was trying to enter or exit a spot I was not usually permitted to go as a child.  I can remember these birds nesting throughout our hayloft, usually up quite high to avoid our rather large but poor excuse of a tomcat. 

     As an adult, I have seldom thought of the pesky little birds but have faithfully been one to set out several bird feeders around the yard.  My family and I have always enjoyed watching the many birds at the feeders and we especially love the hummingbirds.  The little swallows were low on my list of birds to enjoy watching.  And in fact I seldom thought about them except when I would be besieged by low-flying squadrons of them chasing after bugs as I rode atop the riding mower.  I gladly gave them a silent blessing to free my path of flying insects along my route as I seldom came away from my task having not swallowed some sort of bug. 

     I must describe our little homestead to insure you get a complete picture of the story.  The house sits out in the open with several acres of land surrounding it.  There are woods behind the back portion of the back yard and woods edge the front yard and road.  It is a fairly young home which was built on what originally was a corn field made into a small development.  Each home has several acres surrounding it so no one is atop the other.  Space is quite plentiful.

     The house has a small portion of the back yard fenced off to keep our dogs within our own boundaries.  The garage is a two and half car garage with four steps leading up into the house.  A side door opens from the garage into the back yard whrere the dogs are free to go.

     Upon moving into this house, it was decided that the side door would be left open so that the big dog could come and go as she pleased.  The garage would give her shade if needed and shelter when it stormed.  This worked quite well for our German Sheperd mix-breed dog that had grown into the size of a small horse.

     The garage has one solid door which opened with a trusty garage door opener.  This system worked fine for the first year of living in the the home.  The dog was free to come and go as she pleased.  The garage door opened with precision when my husband or I got off work.  It was fantastic in bad weather to just press the little button and quickly zip the car into its spot in the garage.

     The second summer of living in the house things began to change.  I was home one Saturday, a beautiful sunny day.  A great day to shake the throw-rugs, to air out the dog beds, to watch leaves blowing in the distant woods.  While shaking one of the rugs I was nearly hit by a dive-bombing barn swallow.  A chirping scream within breathing distance of my one ear made me jump as one would so easily do when being startled with surprise.

     I didn't think much about it.  I did my little chore and went back in the house to continue my usual Saturday cleaning.  By Tuesday of the following week, the weather had taken a turn for the worse.  Large threatening storms began moving through the area with tornado warnings all over the place, including the county we lived in.

     I drove home from work through the ensuing monsoon, praying to the gods of good weather to please take note of my precarious trek.  Having found that my car was quite capable in most situations I was greatly surprised to find myself gliding here and there with the ground somewhere beneath me.  Great mammoth mounds of puddles sat waiting the approaching traffic across both sides of highway.

     Having survived this wake of the wrath from the water gods, I was looking forward to being tucked safely in our home.  I pulled up our driveway, pushing the button on my dash to open the garage door.  Nothing!  I pushed the button again.  Nothing!  As our area had a history of the electric going off I figured the storm had been the cause.

     I got out of the car and manually pulled up the large garage door.  Here I must admit that a few choice words came out of my mouth as all of my clothing clung to my wet, cold, skin.  I pulled the car into the garage and noticed that the garage light was on.  The electric was on.  I tried the wall mounted garage door opener controls and nothing happened.  As I was looking up the the garage door opener I was attacked in the crotch by my very large, wet, happy to see me, dog.

     I was now, not only wet to the bone but I was covered in fresh mud in spots where one's eyes would not, in all good manners, let their eyes glance.  Good graces prevented it. 

     Mumbling, I retrieved my things from the car, shut the side garage door and headed up the stairs to enter our mudroom.  That was when the noise began.  I turned and looked back up at the ceiling where the lighted garage door opener was attached.

     Sitting atop the light were two barn swallows.  Noisy barn swallows.  I looked at them in puzzlement;  smilled slightly---they were sorta cute.  Then it dawned on my work-weary brain that I had closed them into the garage.  Oh dear.  I opened the big door again, manually.  I took the broom to try and shoo them out of the garage by swinging the broom in the air.  They fluttered slightly, screamed some more at me and then they landed at separate ends of the garage, atop the long metal supports holding up the open door.  I tried this several times with no luck.  They simply moved to another spot, yelling at me the whole time.

     Having already had a bad day at work, I determined that this was not worth the trouble.  I closed the big door, opened the side door back up and went on into the house to indulge myself in the warm, swurling water of my bath.

     I discussed the garage episode at the dinner table with my husband and decided that I should have remained silent on the subject.  His laughing carried on throughout the evening.

     As the spring and summer progressed  it was determined that our house had been selected as the barn swallows' summer residence.  How nice.  It was impossible to get the garage door opener fixed due to the fact that there was a rustic bird's nest built into the light.

     I dubbed the pair of swallows as Ozzie and Harriet (I know!  My age shows with this chioce.).  It was rather fitting.  As it turned out, the male swallow seemed to be the quieter of the two and the female quite vocal.  We decided that he was instructed on the housekeeping chores quite often.

     The little birds were quite vocal when disturbed from their spot atop the light.  When they went outside they would both hunt for bugs on a regular basis and late into the dark.  Of course the outside garage light attracted lovely meals of insects for them.  They did not go hungry.

     And as things progressed it was not long before little heads peeked up from the sides of the little nest.  Ozzie and Harriet proved to be very attentive parents and it was impressive when four little heads peeked up from the sides of the little nest.  Ozzie and Harriet proved to be very attentive parents and it was impressive when four little mouths opened to voice their appreciation and await each in turn to be fed by one parent or the other. 

     Several weeks later when I got home from work, I discovered the four little chicks walking along the long metal support which held up the door.  They could not fly yet but they were out of the nest and all in a row.  Ozzie was at one end of the row and Harriet at the other end with the chicks in-between.  As had become my habit, I talked to the birds as I made my way toward the stairs leading inside the house.  Crotch doggie delighted in my attention as I talked to the birds at the same time.  I did not admit to anyone my growing fascination of these little characters.

     As time went along I was able to observe that Ozzie and Harriet seemed to have different personalities.  Do birds have personalities?  I wondered many times.  Ozzie was a great family man.  He hunted, helped clean house, and guarded the home when necessary.  Harriet was precise, vocal, observant and also a great hunter.  Both parents were attentive to their chicks.

     One weekend I was cleaning house and I heard a loud commotion coming from the garage.  The dogs were both outside in the yard so I knew it was not their antics.  I opened the mudroom door and saw our cat sitting on the bottom step, silently watching the little birds high above her.

     Now, our cats are indoor cats.  The closest they have been to birds is next to the window as the birds feed at the feeders.  But wild instinct was working in our cat, Hermione, and you could tell she was developing a plan to stop all the chirping above her.

     I picked up the cat and put her back inside, shut the door and turned around and told Harriet that she was safe now.  Then I noticed that there were four other full grown barn swallows that had come to the frantic cries of the birds.  One of the brids was Ozzie.  He flew over to sit beside the chicks where they were lined up in a row, snuggled closely together in fright.

     Ozzie began chirping loudly at me, quiet little Ozzie...

     I apologized again and turned around and went back inside.  I watched from the mudroom to see what the birds would do.  Harriet didn't move.  she sat where she was and watched the mudroom door, a sentry, watching out for the enemy.  Ozzie flew outswide along with the other swallows.  He quickly returned with more food for the chicks.  Harriet still didn't move.  She did not take her eyes off the mudroom door.  I checked four hours later and she was still watching the door.

     Ozzie had coached the chicks back into the nest and stood quietly beside it.  Harriet still watched the door.

     I went to bed.

     The next couple of weeks I paid little attention to the birds.  One day I realized that the chicks were trying to fly.  Several had it down pat but one was a bit slower.  I told Harriet not to worry that each child had its own time zone for doing things.  You can't rush genius, I told her.

     It was not long until the chicks were as big as the parents, flying around and hunting with their parents and probably getting into trouble as all children do at one time or another.

     The birds always returned to the nest at night with Ozzie and Harriet on guard on either side of it.  One evening I turned on the garage light and all six were lined up on the metal support watching as I retrieved a loaf of bread out of the freezer we kept there,.  I smiled at the little birds, turned and said goodnight, turned off the light and didn't think anymore about it.

     Toward the end of summer we saw the swallows coming and going.  The little ones had left home, or so I thought.  It wasn't long before I realized that two little heads were peeking over the nest's edge again, only two this time.  Time flew by once again and soon the newest baby birds were quite vocal with each anticipated feeding.  Once they grew big enough they, too, ended up walking along the metal support.  Ozzie and Harriet took turns feeding them.

     I watched from the mudroom window as the chicks were being fed and soon realized that Ozzie and Harriet were not alone in their task.  The first babies were helping to take care of the newest chicks.  It was amazing to watch as all eight birds lined up along the metal support to spend the night.  I thought it was adorable but must admit that my husband's grumblings about the mess they made had merit.  As cute as the little flighty creatures are, they leave one messy line of bird dodo.  It was one single line (thank goodness it was between our cars) which was beginning to irritate even the most temporal personality. 

     By the time fall and winter came around and all the swallows had gone to wherever they winter, we decided to take out the nest they left and to clean up the mess.  Of course, this put a whole different picture on how cute the birds seemed from afar.

     A bird's nest is wet, full of rocks, bent fluff and who knows what...and to say that the bird dodo cleaned up easily would not be true.  Having tried to keep up with them throughout their summer deposits had been yet another housekeeping chore for me and my husband.

     The following spring we began our usual chores of cleaning the garage from the winter mess of road salt and road dirt and whatever else had accumulated during the long months of cold and ice.  We were carrying our glass top patio table out through the big garage door when the loud chirping began.  We looked up and Ozzie and Harriet were sitting on the metal brace once again.  Harriet kept walking back and forth, almost pacing near the spot their nest had once been.  They were obviously looking for it.

     I looked up and told them that we had removed it.  They proceeded to chirp back at me and then they flew on out the big door.  We laughed and went on with our chores.  Several weeks later when I was taking out a bag of trash I noticed that Harriet was back and the beginnings of a nest was resting on the upper wall above the large garage door.

     I looked at her and politedly told her that that was certainly a better spot to put the nest.  Boy was I wrong.  The nest was built and it was not long before two little heads popped up in the nest.  And within several weeks, and much aggregation from Ozzie and Harriet whenever the garage door was opened, the babies were soon seen resting on the metal support beam alongside their parents.

     One day I came home and one of the babies was walking along the garage floor and obviously could not do anything else.  It was still too young to fly.  Harriet was having a hissy-fit and Ozzie was doing century duty with loud boisterous chirps.

     I told Harriet that every household has one child who will give them more trouble that the others and this little guy (or gal) was obviously going to be their troublesome one.  I got the ladder out, walked over and got our bigger dust pan and corraled the little bird onto the pan.  I climbed up the ladder amidst screaming birds, being careful of the extra dive-bombing swallows that had come to their aid.  I tilted the pan until the little one walked back onto the metal beam and then climbed back down.

     Many weeks later I was glad to see that both babies were fine and were doing the normal things that baby swallows do, chirp and eat.  They were the only babies that summer.  Perhaps Ozzie and Harriet were scared to try again.  One troublesome child was enough to deal with over the warm months.

    Once the birds were gone in the late fall we took out their latest nest.  And what a mess it was.  The entire length of the garage door was highly decoreated with bird dodo and wet mud and many other things one would not wish to know.  We had tried to keep up with the cleanup but somehow the birds seemed one step ahead of us.

     The next spring I was determined to keep the birds out of the garage.  We kept the side door shut and put our big dog's water bowl (a large soup pot) just outside the door.  I let her in during storms since she would freak ourt with the roll of thunder and the flash of lightening.

     One day we were having severe storms and I went out to bring the dog into the garage.  As she came barreling through the door so did Ozzie and Harriet.  They stood side by side on the metal beam, totally silent, just looking at me.  What is one to do?

     I gave up!  Okay, I told them.  You win!  I propped open the side door again and within the next few weeks a new nest appeared atop our garage door opener.  Surprise!  Surprise!

     This time they gave us four more chicks to clean up after.  Another two chicks appeared in the nest at the end of the summer.  We soon had six chicks and Ozzie and Harriet resting every evening on the metal support beam.  They remained their usual enthusiastic selves as they hunted bugs during the day and early evening.  They even joined in the armada of other swallows as we mowed our acreage.  The dive bombing techniques were passed from one generation to another.

     After the birds left in the late fall, we decided to leave the nest as it was.  We still were not certain they would return to the same spot the next spring.  Of course, I secretly hoped that they would go bother someone else next time.  Cleanup was a challenge and it was getting to be one dreaded task.  One chirp from the tiny little creatures melted my resolved to keep the side door shut.

    The entire winter I told myself that I would not budge when spring arrived.  I was determined to keep the side door shut.  We kept the dog inside mostly as she was nearly fourteen years old and the weather bothered her at times.  We gave her free will as to how much she wanted to remain outside once the warmth of spring arrived.  And the side door to the garage was shut most of the time.

     I was looking forward to the warmth of summer.  We had an exceptional amount of snow during the winter months and warm sunshine was beckoning.  We kept a tight ship by securing the garage door every day, making certain it was closed.  No unwanted visitors could get in this time.

    One week we had a visit from our teenage granddaughter who I am sorry to say smokes.  Being a non-smoking household, anyone who wants to smoke must go outside to smoke.  she opened the side door to the garage one evening while she had a smoke and left the door propped open.

    On no!  I forgot to tell her to leave the door closed.  In  the morning I was greeted by a boisterous chirping duet from Ozzie and Harriet.  I must admit that a few choice words greeted them in return.

     By the end of the week they had totally renewed the existing nest.  There was fresh mud, pieces of grass, old feathers and a pretty ribbon entwined within the twigs and things.  They are presently sitting atop new eggs and we are expecting to see little heads pop up over the side of the nest very soon.

     As much as I have tried to convince myself that there is a fine line which these little creatures have crossed, I know in my heart that I will forever give in to their needs.  Year after year as the seasons pass, I will wonder if the little birds will show up again and again.

     One look at their little faces and one quiet little chirp is all it takes.  I must add here that they use what I call a quiet chirp.  They will talk as we walk beneath them doing whatever we need to be doing.  Sometimes I get the feeling they are talking about us and I cannot help but wonder if their evening conversations cover the same topics as ours.

     As this spring turns into summer and we look forward to the warmer months we will adjust our lives once again to accommodate Ozzie and Harriet and family and somehow we will feel better about things in our busy lives.

   

    

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About the Author

I am a retired Social Worker, mother of five and grandmother of seven. I have written all my life, including four novels.

Rotifera: A visual celebration of the smallest animals



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