I stopped near Smithville on a drive from Austin to Houston yesterday. This is an overpass over the Colorado River. Too many swallow nests to count. They line the concrete, protected from the elements by the overhang. Laid end to end, both sides of the two overpasses would probably stretch for a mile, at least. Nice engineering on each nest, too.
Let's say each foot of concrete has five nests, packed with mud and grass like adobe. 5280 feet times 5 is 26,400 nests. Each nests will hatch 4 to 7 eggs. Call it 5 hatches. Two adults plus five hatchlings comes to 158,000 birds.
And then you come to the next overpass, less than a mile away.
(click to enlarge)
No comments:
Post a Comment