Swallows

 Best as I can investigate, here in Northeastern Washington, we have six types of swallows.

Bank, Barn, Cliff, Northern Rough-Winged, Tree and Violet-Green's.

While I have seen a few of them, only the Tree and Violet-Green seem to nest in the area of our house. They both utilizes trees or handmade birdhouses to raise their families, although the Violet-Green has been known to also make mud houses in under the overhang of eaves...I have not seen them do it here though. Swallows are so beneficial to the environment because of the enormous amount of insects the eat.

I have about twenty bird houses on the property, some were here when we bought...

Some I built the first year...

And from a distance, my homemade ones don't look bad...but I know they are crap! Hell, most years the birds won't even occupy them!

This particular house I built, with specific measurements, just the way a Screech Owl would like it. Three years later, no Screech Owls in the house...but plenty of Screech Owls in the neighboring trees. I give up!

Lately, I noticed that two of the houses I bought at the town farmers market were occupied.

Both the new boxes, with a lip at the bottom, had an empty egg outside? How or why, I am unsure...was it a rodent, did the mother know the egg was bad and toss it?...all questions to which I have no answer.

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Here is a short video of the Mother sitting on two other eggs. 

Underneath the mother were two eggs.

The nest next door was abandoned for some reason.

If I had a hundred poles or trees, I'd wish I could have a family of swallows on each of them...they are so neat to watch.

Each Swallow eats approximately 850 mosquitoes, flies and other flying insects every day...the only bird like equivalent would be a mammal...bats.