Solstice splats

Like everyone else I hate to see abandoned dog poo bags hanging n bushes but these splashes on the barn floor gladden my heart because they indicate that the swallow nestlings up above are thriving and their parents are removing their poo bags (technically 'faecal sacs') when they bring food.
 (A canvas placed here would perhaps create a passable abstract painting.)

Gilbert White, the 18thC. Hampshire curate  and naturalist, wrote on June 21st 1765 that the swallow is most instructive pattern of unwearied industry and affection; for, from morning to night while there is a family to be supported she spends the whole day in skimming close to the ground and  exerting the most sudden turns and quick evolutions...When a fly is taken a sharp snap from her  bill is heard resembling the noise at the shutting of a watch-case.


In fact both parents feed the young but Gilbert presumably made the assumption it was just the female because that was the case in human families at the time.