Baby barn swallows, or “barnacles” are fluffy, round, beaked creatures with tiny claws who encrust themselves firmly on to barn walls and fixtures. They squawk rhythmically to both attract their mother’s attention for food and to alert photographing cuteporters:
Alert reader Keith W. spotted at these barnacles at Mercer Slough Barnacle Blueberry Farm in Bellevue, WA.
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Whoa!! Fluffbombs!!
Poofy, floofy little morsels!
is it just me, or do they look a little disapproving?
OMG claws!
They’re like little floofy Jabba the Hutts!
I think that birdlets may just rival bunnies in terms of bringing the disapproval. Check out that tight-beaked grimace!
So that’s what I have in my garage! (Now *their* garage until they get their floofy disapproving butts out of the nest). They look disapproving because the cuteporter did not bring them any juicy bugs. At least, this is what my barnicles tell me I must do. I would if I knew how …
Absolutely disapproving!
Are these African or European…? (Had to be done)
Such adorable and squeezable little poofs!
So fluffy. They’re like dandelions!
Disapproving Fluffulence.
Wait! Aren’t these those cute new Bobble-Head Barnacles? I want a set for my dashboard!
Meep, Moms late with the bugs.
Barn Swallows are American. They will set up a mud nest where ever they feel comfortable. This includes porches, my parents had some on theirs.-Woods Walker
@chanpon
Are you suggesting coconuts migrate???!!!…
I know a guy who has a bonche of those on the back of his tractor. Mummy swallow follows him around when he goes out somewhere.
Cutest disapproval ever.
William Curtis Gulliver Solstad had a yearly, running battle with the barn swallows that we had nesting in our garage. They would swoop down on him and give him a very hard time every baby season. He never gave in, though, Willie was one tough black and white cow-colored puddeh-tat. But it was fun watching them swoop down on him and he would hunch down and plan his 1) retreat, 2) revenge. That tail of his told the whole story, switching like a live electric wire- I suspect that no birds got hurt in the exercise. Rest in peace, Willie.
There is a lady whose has made her living drawing chickadees-these remind me of her drawings of baby chickadees, so cute!
http://www.allbrands.com/products/abp14014-0224.html Valerie Pfeiffer is her name. Beautiful chickadee babies!
I agree with Kivrin. First thing I thought was that these have the perfect disapproving bird face!
Fluffy!!!
check out this post about barn swallows at The Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, NY. These swallows are definitely unintentionally farmed cuties.
http://ruralblacksmith.blogspot.com/2009/04/smallest-neighbors.html
Thank you for the extremely interesting information about barnacles, Meg. Sir David Attenborough is on Line 1–he’d like to book you as an expert for his next nature film, “The World’s Little-Known Flying Arthropods.”
If I were to get that close to babeh swallows around my place, I’d be skewered! The mommies and daddies don’t take kindly to visitors… you have to carry an open umbrella to walk anywhere near there, LOL!
I do *not* disapprove of their floofy disapproval!
Is there a more disapproving birdface anywhere?
Ah dewnt think so.
FUFF! (no “L”- shout it out)
We have a house martin nest outside my office window. They start peeping at sun-up (around 3.30) and the parents spend all day coming and going to feed them.
One interesting thing about swallows and swifts is that they live almost their whole live in the air. Once they fledge, they won’t land again until they mate. Amazing birds.
hahaha I was going to say, they look so disapproving, which of course 9827343 people have already pointed out! Adorable, but disapproving. D’aww.
Barnacles, I was going to invite you to my house to feast on some of our Florida mosquitoes, but I think they’re bigger than you are.
Swifts and swallows are some tough little birds. When I was in Southern England, I would see them in aerial battles above my hosts’ garden.
PS Almost forgot to mention the whiplash the two cats would get, watching them.
Ohh those are some grumpy looking birdlettes!!
The last barnacle belongs on the prow of a ship turning into the wind, with a little tricorn hat.
Check out the Mad Bluebird, Claudia and all other Peeps- Happy Fourth of July!
http://www.missico.com/personal/tidbits/images/mad_bluebird_large.jpg
@apotheosis – haha nice. he’s all disapproving of his shoddy crew
I have hand raised dozens of these little cuties – they fall from the nests and will die if you don’t. They can pack away an amazing number of mealworms and grow up realy fast.
They bond to their humans really quickly, and it is hard to get them fledged without taming them down considerably. They beg to take baths in your open hands under the faucet, land on your head, and LOVE to beak fence (wave your finger around in front of their face and they bitch and snap, snap, snap at you with their harmless little beaks! Saying goodbye is hard, but it is always gratifying to know they wouldn’t have that chance without my having stepped in.
VERY disapproving and stern.
My boyrfriend has a barnacle nest on his bedroom window, cute but damn they are noisy!
We have two swallows nests on our front porch at home! They always have these little disapproving looks like grumpy little old men! I love it!
I remember the dozens of Barn Swallows that were around my parents’ farm
GIGGLE 
Man, did they ever dive bomb every cat that walked from the barn to the house and back 
Barnacle Bill the Sailor!
more…fat…chicks…
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