Common Birds 133 - Tree Swallow

Sunday, June 8

A swallow is taunting me.

Yesterday, I picked up a few groceries after the kids were asleep. Back in the parking lot, a swallow looped low and landed in an abandoned pipe in the wall of the mostly abandoned building next door. I could hear the crowded nest echoing out of the pipe’s darkness. It would have been a cool picture to catch the swallow right as it was disappearing inside, but I’d left my monocular in the car.

This evening, I took out the garbage and the recycles, and before heading back inside, I grabbed my monocular. Immediately, the swallow described the same circle and perched in the same pipe. I tried to get my phone and monocular set up, but in an instant it was gone.

Now, I face a predicament. There’s a chance that the swallow comes out soon, and I can get a picture. However, there is also a chance the swallow is inside the pipe for the rest of the night. So do I risk looking like a weirdo or worse, pointing not just my phone, but my phone and essentially a scope at an almost abandoned building? Or do I just head home and hope there are more cedar waxwings on the way? The chance is too tempting. I line up my phone and my monocular and try to point it at the building as nonchalantly as possible.

Seconds tick by. Fifteen seconds. Nothing from the swallow. I get nervous. Haverhill has a high tolerance for strangeness. I myself have ignored all sorts and conditions of odd behavior. If I saw a person pointing a contraption at a wall, I’d keep my eyes forward and move along. But now I’m on the odd side of the interaction. Thirty seconds. Still nothing. It suddenly feels like everyone in the building is in the parking lot. At a minute, the awkwardness overwhelms me and I retreat to the building. I glance back, sure that the swallow will emerge as soon as I turn away, but there’s still nothing. I am denied even that satisfaction.