As featured Aug. 11, 2012, at www.cnjonline.com
Air conditioners work overtime, flowers wilt in an effort to escape the sun and lemonade and ice tea flow — it’s hot.
Humans
actually have it pretty easy, able to duck indoors when the
temperatures get to be too much. In fact, pretty much any ambulatory
creature can find ways to dodge the scorching air, even if it’s just a
matter of finding a shady spot to nap until the sun goes down.
But
things are a little different for those unfortunate enough to hatch
during the peak of summer. Sure, the heat is great for incubation, not
so good for the squawkers.
The eggs in the front porch nest
hatched, right about the time the temperatures started to spike and in a
few short days, it became a thermometer of sorts.
It can be less
than obvious sometimes by their loud protests and seemingly threatening
swooping, but for more than 2,000 years, barn swallows have increased
their odds of survival by nesting where humans are — taking a page
straight out of the original strategy manual by living near a creature
that tends to drive other predators away.
However it’s not a
perfect strategy, as humans may keep larger birds and other animals away
but they only tend to climate control the insides of their homes.
Were
it earlier in the season, the nest would have been in the perfect
place, tucked under the edge of a wall that receives sun all day long,
but in the hottest part of summer, the perfect nest became an oven.
In
the cool of the mornings, with the exception of a flurry of chirping
when mom or dad would fly by and drop crushed bugs into waiting mouths,
the mud sconce-like nest was silent and appeared empty, the babies
huddled together at its center.
But by mid-morning, the beaks
began to appear at the edges and from noon until evening, four
mostly-bald heads spiked with fuzz were hanging wilted over the sides —
their eyes closed, beaks open and panting for air.
Squirming and
shifting uncomfortably, they would occasionally jockey against one
another in an attempt to get closer to the edge and hopefully a breeze,
but for the most part, they just hung over the sides of the nest,
looking half dead.
With all their effort to escape the misery of
the nest, it wasn’t really a surprise to find one little one hunkered
down on the porch where its squirming obviously culminated in an
emergency landing.
How it survived the plunge was a mystery, since
its eyes were still closed and its feathers more like fur than anything
useful to a bird, but alive it was.
With the aid of a step-stool,
the baby was deposited back in the nest and within a few minutes, the
relieved parents were again happily dropping crushed bugs into waiting
mouths.
The little one simply foreshadowed things to come and by
morning, three had bailed out of the proverbial frying pan and into the
fire, only they weren’t so lucky.
Had they not spent every day
inching so perilously close to the edge of the nest, I might have
thought they were pushed, but there was little doubt they had fallen in
their blind search for cool air.
As the heat of the day returned, a
single little head moved over the side of the nest and began to droop,
mouth gaping — there was a survivor.
By evening, a new milestone
was reached and the little one managed to perch on the side of the nest,
seeming remarkably more agile and balanced.
However, as the noon
sun began to bake the porch the following day, there was still no little
head hanging over the side, and instead, I found the little one
unmoving in the hot center of the nest.
Five young swallows flew
out of the same nest the year before and not a one of them crawled to
the edge and fell, so the only possible answer was somehow this group
knew something different, even if frying pan or fire ended up not being
much of a choice at all.
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