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Birds on the Front Porch (1 Viewer)

MdG

New member
Hi! A few weeks ago we noticed a bird one night on our front porch on a ledge. Every evening he stays and by morning he's gone. This past week there were 2 one night then 3 the next. Then yesterday there were 6 on our porch during the afternoon. This evening there were 6 of them sleeping on our front porch.

They are very calm when we come and go from the house. They just watch us and don't bother to move.

When it was one I thought maybe he was a pet - but with 6 of them?

The ones that are here tonight aren't quite as colorful as the first one.
He had red under his throat - 2 white streaks on his wings - and a long forked tail. In the sun light they are almost a purple tone. Very pretty birds. The biggest is about 4" big. When they are flying they are very sleak looking with their wings curved to a point - almost like a boomerang shape.


I was wondering if you had any advice as to what to do. I thought about putting food out or maybe a nest of some kind. We live with lots of trees around so we are alittle confused why they would choose our front porch and we are concerned to chase them away. Some help from some experts would be great!

Also we'd like to know what type of birds these are.

Thanks so much!!
 

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Those are barn swallows. The juveniles are more drably colored than the adults. It is very natural for them to nest and shelter on the porches of houses and by humans. Right now at my house we have two nests with recently fledged babies. The best thing to do is leave them alone and watch them from a distance that the birds are comfortable about
 
Thanks for the replies! That's good to know they aren't in trouble and it's normal behaviour. It's amazing they are wild birds ... they let us walk within a foot of them!

We'll carry on as normal. My only complaint is they need to pick up after themselves! :-O
 
The photos are indeed juvenile barn swallows, and I agree they need to learn to pick up after themselves. I once volunteered on a nature reserve where these were nesting in a hide, my job, once the birds had left the nest was to clean up underneath. Awful! It was quite exciting to be there when they left the nest though, as there was one that couldn't find the way out of the hide so I had to pick it up and let it out.
 
MdG - Howdy from california! I have the same problem at work. We decided to put up a piece of cardboard below the nest to minimize the mess near our doorway. It's going to get mighty noisy next year, we have two or three generations making nests around our facility.
 
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