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MUDDY KIDS. ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOWS.

It must be spring on Jocassee. What a lovely Tuesday morning it was, as we waited for a small herd of young’uns from Powdersville Elementary to arrive. The Devils Fork basin was full of hooting loons and Bonaparte’s gulls, just when I thought spring loon migration was done. And northern rough-winged swallows, a bird whose arrival is a sure signal of spring. They are the one swallow that nests in hollows along the cut banks of Jocassee, often in abandoned Kingfisher excavations. The sky over the dock was full of them, in darting pursuit of flying insects. Later in the day, as the boats came in, depositing the kids in a much more wet and muddy condition than when they left, many sightings were reported of big puddles of tiger swallowtail butterflies, feeding on, well, often unpleasant to describe items, fueling up on the essential minerals they need. Boats full of muddy kids, the sky, the water and the shore full of birds and butterflies. What a wonderful day. B