During the gr. 2-5 and middle school sessions of camp, we’ll be taking a field trip to Baylands. Tongight I went for a walk at Baylands to scope out some of the things we might look at. The Cliff Swallow nesting colony is very active, with well over 30 nests, and new ones still being built. Since they’re still building nests, there’s a good chance there will still be active nests when we take our field trips in a couple of weeks, which is good news!

Here’s a photo I took tonight of a Cliff Swallow in the nest:

Yesterday, I watched as some of the birds were building a new nest. It was really pretty exciting to watch the birds swoop down to the mud flats and scoop up a bill-full of mud, fly back up to a nest they’re building, carefully apply the mud, then swoop down for another bill-full. They seem to work for about a quarter of an hour, then stop for the day, presumably to let the mud dry.