Our swallows returned yesterday.  Okay, so I'm not sure if they're "our" swallows, i.e., the babies that grew up in our yard, but we did have four tree swallows show up in the yard, sitting on fence posts and shepherd's hooks, and the nesting box, and they were checking out the nesting box.  It has been about a week since our swallows disappeared, and parent swallows will still feed fledglings for about a week, so maybe the babies returned to the nest still expecting to be fed.  Or maybe they are interested in nesting locations for a second brood.  In any case, I made sure I cleaned out the original nest and put up a second Gilbertson nest box just in case the swallows do want to nest again.

As far as the orioles coming to our yard, for about the month of June, we would always just see the female oriole coming to eat.  Now, for about the past week, we have only been seeing the male coming to eat.  I'm not sure what the significance of this is, but I wanted to document it here.