Couple's 'surprising' find inside Crocs after overseas holiday
Yahoo News Australia has produced countless stories about crocs swallowing items, but we believe it's our first article about swallows nesting in Crocs.
At the centre of this yarn is a beloved pair of gardening Crocs that will need hosing out after a group of baby swallows decided they would make a better home than their nest.
Retired couple Peter, 72, and Diane Goegan, 66, returned from an overseas holiday around a month ago to discover birds nesting on the side of their home. That group hatched without incident, so the parents decided to raise a second clutch.
That’s when their luck changed. Three days ago, intense winds shook their home at Wedderburn, 70km northwest of Bendigo. After coming to the ground, the youngsters were too inexperienced to fly back up to the nest amid the turbulent conditions. Mr Goegan was then "surprised" to find them sheltering inside his Crocs.
Even when the conditions improved, it soon became clear the Crocs were roomier than the nest. “It’s just weird, I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never seen that before," Mr Goegan told Yahoo News Australia.
Internet users delight in mocking much maligned Crocs
Since making their nest in his Crocs, the couple has delighted in watching their antics. “Mum and dad are still feeding them,” he said. “They're totally not scared of us. I can go up to them, probably within 200 centimetres and they don't move.”
Mr Goegan has also been posting images of the adorable chicks to social media, attracting close to 800 reactions and 60 comments, with people doing their best to come up with puns to caption the image. “Now that is a croc of sh**,” one person wrote.
Crocs are considered ugly by many fashion lovers, so many internet users delighted at taking aim at the plastic footwear brand. “Best use of Crocs,” someone quipped. “So Crocs are good for something,” another person said.
Will the swallows be allowed to stay inside the shoes?
Despite the birds being close to the ground, the couple aren’t scared they’ll be attacked as the couple don’t have any cats or children to disturb them. “They must feel safe,” Mr Goegan said.
While the Crocs have now been vacated, they remain in an ugly state, so they won’t be worn for “a little while longer”. The birds have now made their home on top of Ms Goegan’s Blundstones, and they’ve also quickly also become fouled.
And although Mr Goegan thinks the swallows are “messy bloody things”, his wife thinks they’re pretty cute, so it looks like they’ll have a safe home on the shoe rack until they’re ready to fly away.
“One of them tried to fly off but he got blown off course, so he came back,” Mr Goegan said. “The other three just sat and waited. But I think they’ll be gone in the next couple of days.”
On Thursday, Mr Goegan offered a brief update on the birds. "The high winds we were having recently have subsidised and our little friends have gone. But (they are) not forgotten," he said.
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