Fancy a mouth full of mud to build your house?

Yesterday I went with the Latrobe Valley Field Naturalists club to explore the heathlands in the Cape Liptrap Coastal Reserve. The weather was lousy but we found many interesting plants and a number of special birds. Lunch time was spent in a house near the beach front and as we were parking I noticed that some Welcome Swallows - Hirundo neoxena were paying regular visits to a roadside puddle to collect mud for their nest building. The weather had improved and the sun was shining, so I left lunch early and went back to the road, sitting on a grassy bank near the puddle and almost immediately the swallows resumed their building activity. Here is a Welcome Swallow with a mouthful of mud (don't you envy it?):

and another delightful morsel of wet mud:

and finally one more shot of a Welcome Swallow, this time with an almost clean beak just before collecting another delectable beakful:

Great and delightful contribution, kennedyh !!

Very nice series kennedy; their adorable!


So glad you left lunch early and were able to get these shots.

Thanks so much for posting them! Pelle

It doesn't look a happy camper Ken! I got a giggle from the expression, "well wouldn't you look like this if you had to eat mud?