Swallows feeding their young

Swifts fly screeching about the houses.  Sunlight and blue skies gives way to fair-weather cloud as the morning advances. The last week has seen cooler weather and intermittent showers so bramble flowers  last longer.  Sunlight sparkles raindrops on vegetation and micr-moths and butterflies are on the wing- those species that can fly in such conditions, like small-heath and meadow brown.
There is birdsong all about me and I know when I might hope to hear skylark in song-flight and, sure enough, there are larks singing on high.  
Scabious comes into flower and there's yellow ladies' bedstraw with purple and white thistles. 

---

Approaching a stile where stone walls intersect I spy a  bird perched on the gate and realise it's a young swallow. I could reach out and touch it and it's too young  to know it would be wise to fly.  The young swallow lacks the colours of the adult and its long tail-streamers and it's pale about the bill. 
I linger when at last it flies and watch adult swallows flying in to feed their young scattered amongst the top-stones of the wall, feathers fluttering in anticipation of food.  It's a gift of a moment. The young swallow perched on the gate stopped me in my tracks and I lingered to watch the adult swallows catching insects and feeding their young.
Setting out early, I hadn't taken a camera so here are fledgling swallows I've photographed in recent years.