There has been a particular group of swallows who nest each year under the Volta del Menchi below Palazzo Pancrazi in Barga Vecchia.
Their acrobatic flying through the open arches and walkways in the Volta has been one of the glorious sights of Barga in the summer.
Later on in the summer we get to see their young swooping noisily around the Volta del Menchi and then soon after, the bitter sweet melancholy bit where they will sit in line on some of the wires strung through Barga Vecchia and then one morning they will all just disappear again.
The cycle repeats itself each year and never fails to amaze.
This morning, swallows newly hatched in one of the few nests still to be found under the Volta del Menchi, stretched their wings for the first time and moved onto one of the electric lines that snake through the piazza.
Although they are now flying for the first time, they are still unable to feed themselves and so the parents are once again working overtime to answered their shrill hungry calls.
