It happened last Tuesday.  That morning the swallows in the Institute parking garage were there, busy with their normal morning routine.  As I walked past I saw them busily darting in and out of that concrete structure like little arrows…fussing and chattering…wheeling and diving in the air above the Institute feeding on the morning’s bugs.  When I came back out that afternoon to go home, they were all gone.  Skedaddled, probably, for their South American nesting grounds. 

Just like that.  The silence was deafening, and as always, a little sad.  So summer’s over…already…?  We have two or more flocks in our parking garage…two for sure in the upper level deck, and maybe one more in the lower.  Since I rarely ever use the lower deck I’m not as familiar with that flock.  Last year they each left on different schedules.  This year for some reason, they all split together.  I wish I knew what the signal was.

All summer long while they’re there in the garage, I whistle to them as I walk by.  They’re fun little dickens, and I’ve taken over the years to calling to them in a particular set of whistles that isn’t anything like their own…since my mouth just can’t make the sounds they do…but distinctive enough that I was hoping they’d become familiar with and know that I wasn’t a threat to their nests.  Not that they don’t seem to be completely comfortable with the humans going in and out of the garage anyway.  They’ve made their nests in little recesses in the ceiling concrete where the light fixtures are and we park our cars and walk through the garage just a few feet beneath them.  Sometimes, as I walk though the garage and whistle to them, they come flying out and fly around me like a playful chattering swarm, before shooting into the sky to feed.

Wednesday morning I checked to make sure they really were gone.  I wandered from one end of the garage to the other and it was stone quiet in there.  Not a peep, not even from the sparrows who apparently still didn’t know that their nemesis were gone.  For all practical purposes it’s still hot and sweltering summer here in Baltimore, but that sudden deathly quiet in the parking garage is the first sign that it’s loosing its grip.  Fall is on the way.  Looking back at my blog archives I see that it’s always been around the end of August that they’ve left, but one year it was the first week in September for some reason.  That afternoon I checked again before walking home and there was no sign.  They were gone.

Yesterday morning I took another walk though the garage, a little depressed.  Sometimes I wish I could fly south with them.  And…rationally…I’ve always wondered just were it is exactly our particular flocks migrate to.  As I was walking out the other end of the upper deck, I suddenly spotted two swallows, sitting perched quietly in a corner.

Aww…what’s wrong guys…?  Did you get left behind…?   Birds stick with their flock and it startled me that these two weren’t with the others.  For a moment I wondered if they’d come down with something right before migration time.  I whistled to them a couple times, as if to say Hi there…are you all right?   If I could have, I’d have said You two need to get going!  The others have a two day start on you…!  But I don’t speak Swallow. 

I stood there and whistled to them once more.  Side-by-side they eyed me over, but said nothing.  Sometimes I get a few swallow chirps back.  I wondered if they’d separated from the flock for some reason, and were now on their own.  Why are you still here…?   Did you miss the signal?  But I had work to do.  I gave them one last whistle, and then I turned toward the pedestrian exit, and to my day. 

Just as I stepped into the sunlight two little arrows suddenly shot past on either side of me and into the sky.  I watched them make a beeline over Wyman Park and disappear into the summer blue. 

Were you waiting for me..?  Were you checking to see if I was coming too..?