The surviving swallow babies got off to a great start and have been flying like kamikazes all over the courtyard, dive bombing us and Ayla every chance they have. I thought that we were out of the woods as far as bird babies goes after that…but I was wrong. I knew that there was a nest hiding in some vines that are continuously out of control and growing up the front of our storage buildings. Perhaps if you look very closely above the window in this picture below (click to enlarge), you will see a slightly elevated section of brown…that is the nest I found when I trimmed these vines back last year. This happens to be the same window that the marten scurried into when he was trying to escape Ayla’s teeth of terror.


I intended to take the nest down because it was very cute and intact and I wasn’t too keen about having more birds around here. But time came and went, the vines grew over it and I more or less forgot about it. Until about two weeks ago when I walked by there and heard little chirps coming from it. More babies, just what we need.

Up to this point I haven’t really heard much from these birds. They are called Amsel in German and known as blackbirds in English (Turdus merula). They are a member of the thrush family and seem to be prevelant in Europe but not too many other places. Learn more from Wiki.


Today the dog was acting a bit peculiar again and I ended up outside thinking she wanted to play. But perhaps she was trying to tell me that it was time for these little blackbirds to have flying lessons. We now have three little baby blackbirds hopping around our courtyard and I can’t let the dog out because she thinks they are toys. I don’t think she would intentionally hurt them but she chases them and one swat with her paw should be enough to do them in.

There are three babies total. They are brown in color at the moment and don’t yet have pronounced tail feathers like their parents…which are both sitting on top of the building here and screaming at us. I just took Ayla outside a few minutes ago thinking the little ones may have made it to safer ground since they can fly a little bit (two of them any way) but apparently not. I was keeping an eye out for them and have seen two of them again already…so Ayla will not be spending much time in the courtyard tonight.

Here’s a few photos I took of the little ones earlier today. These are two separate birds. The third one doesn’t look much different but he didn’t show up so well in his photo op.



I guess it’s a good thing that we’re leaving for the weekend now. Otherwise we would have to either figure out a way to move these little guys to safer ground…or we would have to keep Ayla inside almost all the time which isn’t so pleasant for her.

I may have to go shoot some video of these guys. They really are sweet. I just want to pick them up and cuddle them. And they are not scared in the least of me. The dog is another story but she’s chased most of them around already I think. One of them looked a bit soggy when I first saw him this morning. At least he didn’t drown in the slobber.

Modified from our post on Our New Farmhouse in Germany