Hirundo rustica

Otherwise known as barn swallow or the lovely french term "hirondelle des granges". Nice birds and all but we've been waging a little war against them for the past few weeks. Don't get me wrong, we are bird lovers and have a few bird feeders and even erected a few bird houses for them. We've even harboured a few nests around teh house like Beachmama. But these have been causing some havoc here. Stubbornly enough, they decided a nest construction under the highest peak on our house would be a good idea. Their nests are made with mud so combine that with some p**p droppings and the windows all along that side of the house were getting filthy AND not an easy task to clean up either.

So they'd start a nest and we'd take it down with an unconventional method. Throwing tennis balls at it. After a few dozen tries, one would eventually hit it right on and destroy it. But the minute the nest was down, another one was started. The last attempt was a one in a million shot. If you look at the pics, look way up and into the nest you'll see one neon yellow tennis ball nicely settled inside the nest. Boy those birds were pissed! But mission accomplished for us. They've gone elsewhere for their construction project.