A real estate rush at the Pole Farm

Even without the formal arrival of Spring on the calendar, you know it’s a new season at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. The tree swallows are back, jetting over the fields and checking out the bird boxes.

The boxes are cozy quarters for the swallows and Eastern bluebirds, the latter staying in the park year-round. But when the swallows return, they jostle with the bluebirds for residency in the boxes.

I spotted my first swallows of the year the other day, with two of them flitting around one of the boxes near the edge of the woods. I was too far off to bother with trying to shoot a photo.

As I trekked back to the parking lot I spotted one on one of the boxes not far from the trail. The bird was looking straight across the box, but when I pressed the shutter on my camera, the bird turned its head and gave me what I interpreted as a look of “don’t bug me.”

The field sparrows have started singing again, and I also got to watch a couple of bluebirds poke in and out of a another box near the swallow. Warmer, sunnier days lie ahead.