The Fledgling

The housemartin family have been blipped a couple of times over the past three months but tragedy struck yesterday ... we arrived home to find the nest had fallen off the wall, one chick was dead, three more were hiding behind a plant pot and parents could not be seen.

After making a makeshift nest out of an ice cream tub the three were wrapped up warmly for the night and put onto the porch roof in the morning in the hope that parents would find them and feed them...imagine my surprise when I looked out of the window and saw them climbing out of the nest, frantically flapping their wings and jumping off the roof and back onto the doorstep!!

This is one of the fledglings, taking cover under the hydrangea.

By their strong chirps they don't seem to have suffered from their adventure and fingers crossed that they'll survive.