Adirondack LettersNo.8: A Barn Swallow Story Hints of Balsam and Pine: Nature Reflections in a minor key from our quiet corner of the Adirondacks. For Fourpeaks Guests and anyone who ever dreamed about a wilderness getaway. CLICK & GO! (On this page.) Adirondack Letter No.8: " A Barn Swallow Story." (On the next page.) Our Summer Swallows at New Camp. List and Links to all the Adirondack Letters in this series. 
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to get on our mailing listAnd receive occasional Adirondack Letters like this. "A Barn Swallow Story" Adirondack Letter No.8 (CLICK HERE for "Our Summer Swallows," 22 photos and text accompany this Letter.) Subject: "A Barn Swallow Story." Adirondack Letter No.8 Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 06:48:52 From: < VisitUs@4peaks.com > To: < youremailname@youremail.address > To: Fourpeaks Visitors At: < youremailname@youremail.address > TO OUR FELLOW NEWYORKERS: We are deeply saddened by the recent horrific events that happened in our home town. Just back from a family visit there we experienced firsthand the difficulty of "getting back to normal." We hope this Letter brings you a sense of the restorative potential in the natural world around us. Dear Fourpeaks Visitor, Our most welcome Summer visitors return in June to the very same place by the Stone House back door. Busy weeks on end with mud and straw, they fix up and add on to their nest from last year. After a while we get used to the startling protective display whenever we go outside or return home. Their small dark bodies move with amazing speed from up between the rafters where they live, down under the low porch overhang, out into the open air, screeching noisily at us, and then dart right back again into the small nest opening without pause or hesitation. Grey-white droppings soil the large planter by the door, the cedar bench and the gas grill as well. Good neigbors, we give up using that for all the smoke it makes. Now it's a useless mess but we don't mind. Some time in mid-July we sense the change. Frequent feeding trips and more alarming protective displays. The chicks have hatched. After a while we hear faint peeps. Later small beaks peer out the nest opening way up above our heads. Whenever human guests show up at our back door we point with pride to our aerial families, the hardworking couples, their sizeable broods and well constructed homes. The well designed gourd-shaped nest with the protected opening is built by the cliff swallow. The bowl-shaped open nest over in the Woodshed and at New Camp is their close cousin the barn swallow. We joke they are both paying guests, or at least work for their keep. In flight they comb the air for small insects, dining on the fly. Our place is mosquito-free. City dwellers are unfamiliar with these birds. We explain that high cliffs are their original habitat. When, years ago, they first adapt to human dwellings, large airy barns with high protected beams are their favorite nesting places. Open shelters like our Stone House back porch, the nearby woodshed and the eaves and porches at several of our backcountry camps, all make good seasonal breeding homes for these industrious little birds. We see them August evenings from our garden dinner table make high swooping arcs overhead. We admire the speed, grace, and repeated intricate patterns of flight. These end not on some limb or bush as with other birds, but always back at the nest, their high trapeze. There they feed their young and then they're off again. One day this show has an expected added attraction. Five or six wobbly smaller specks join the two graceful flyers we've been watching all along. At first the newcomers are airborne for just a few minutes. Later though slower and easily identified by their immature flight, the fledgling birds are out for longer periods, feeding on their own. Our swallows fly en famille. For weeks the evening air is filled with their purposeful acrobatics. Now Summer is over for us. The nests are empty. Getting ready for the next season here in the Northcountry, we miss them and wish them well wherever they are. (There are photos and more about our swallows at http://4peaks.com/ppswallo.htm ) Thanks for reading this. If you've ever been a guest with us, go to http://4peaks.com/fgift.htm to learn about reduced rates for returning guests. Come see us again. If you've never been--find our new Availability Chart at http://4peaks.com/femail0.htm and make some time for us. There's a lovely quiet season coming up. Till then please visit us On-Line: http://4peaks.com/ "Explore our 700-acre private rest and play-ground." http://4peaks.com/fcamp.htm Pretty Camps in a Hidden Valley. http://4peaks.com/fotrails.htm Walks with views & Beauty spots. http://4peaks.com/fgstbndx.htm Photo Guest Book--What they said. Your Adirondack Hosts, Martin Schwalbaum/Louise Merriam P.S. If you liked this Letter, CLICK HERE to Tell a Friend! If you didn't like it please reply to this with "REMOVE" in the subject heading. Thanks. Member Whiteface Mountain Visitors Bureau Member Lake Placid/Essex County Visitors Bureau ************************************************************* This is No.8 of a really occasional Letter, "Hints of Balsam and Pine from our Corner of the Adirondacks," for Fourpeaks guests or anyone who ever inquired about a Fourpeaks Vacation/Getaway. To get off this list reply with "REMOVE" in the subject heading. *************************************************************
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