Wow, looks like a lot of mud went into that nest. Is it inside the barn or outside.
We had a Phoebe that build in our lean-to for lots of years, then two summer ago the babies were found dead (I guess something happened to Mom and so far we have not had another nest built in there. We miss them.

It's on the outside, under an overhang. There's a row of four of these nests there, this is the only active one that we can tell. There's at least 3 more inside the barn. They come back to the same nests each year. We have horses, and there's an active nest right over their stall, but it's dark in there and I don't want to use the flash on them.

Today is one glorious day. I had a nest of swallows on my porch and today they all left the nest.

I am all about living with nature...me not bothering them, them not bothering me.

At first I thought it was an awesome thing to have them on my porch. I really enjoyed watching the adults flying around acrobatically to catch insects to feed their young. As well, I loved watching the chicks mature.

Then, at a certain point, I realized that I couldn't even come out my front door, take the garbage to the curb or go collect the mail without the adults diving down at me aggressively. One day it took everything within me not to smack one of them out of the air as I came in from hitting tennis balls.

What was once the wondrous beauty of nature because a real pain in the rear. They scared my neighbors, my wife, our visitors...even me.

The balance was thrown off by the nasty birds so now they will have to find some other place to nest. I will be closing off the ledges of the columns on my front porch and painting them to match.

Who cares if they cut down on the insect population if they don't allow you to coexist in the outdoors? Good riddance Swallows.