I have not seen a single swallow in the skies over Bath this year. Last year there were very few - two or three pairs at most. I hope some arrive soon.
I had been thinking about the dangers of travelling across Malta if you have wings, but then I remembered when every garage in the Summer months had a bucket of water and a sponge for motorists to clean the hundreds of insects stuck to their windscreens and headlights. You could roughly tell how far they had come just by looking at the uncountable conglomeration. When you stopped at traffic lights, wasps would gather them for food until the lights turned green, then wait a few minutes for the next batch.
I heard a shocking statistic a few years ago about the decline of insect life in the UK. I cannot remember exactly, but they are reputed to be down by round 70%. I think the swallows are going elsewhere to breed. They have mouths to feed.
I spent a few months working on Longleat House in the 1980s, when the old Lord Bath was alive and Viscount Weymouth was in exile. An old retainer told me that every Spring when the swifts and swallows arrived, he would be instructed to take up a long pole and smash the newly built mud nests from the rafters of the cloisters to which they travelled thousands of miles to reach every year. The old Marquis did not like the white bird-shit splashed about on the cobbles of the courtyard below.
The swifts have arrived but I have not seen any swallows. I like to sit outside watching the swifts but it has been too cold to do so this year. My mother was very superstitious and would not have allowed a swallow's nest to be destroyed. There is a lot of superstition relating to swallows bringing good luck. At least there was where I grew up.
ReplyDeleteThere seem to be swifts around.
DeleteSwallows here..a little late, but in time for the midges..but no swifts.
ReplyDeleteSwallows used to nest in the public toilets of one village that we used to live near, and those nests were knocked off (illegally...they weren't prosecuted but I think that there have been prosecutions in the past)
The swallows then built near the top of the pine end of the village hall next to the toilets...
Swallows but no swifts in some places, the opposite in others.
DeleteThey return here every year and fly south for their staple diet of insects and winter sun. I do the same and try to go on holiday then. It was Tenerife last December.
ReplyDeleteLike Ratty in Wind in the Willows almost did.
DeleteThere are swallows at my friend's farm i Wisconsin. Best help I can provide. I also read that more birds are killed annually by cats than by wind turbines.
ReplyDeleteI am sure more cats kill swallows than wind turbines.
DeleteI see swallows on my property and there is no shortage of flying insects. I've never seen insects collect on a car windshield.
ReplyDeleteIs that the USA?
DeleteI remember insects on the windscreen, and a gory interest if there was blood as a child. Now we have clean windscreens and less birds, which is the tragedy. Also I have often wondered if it is sensible to cover our verges by the roadside with wild flowers, when the bees and butterflies can get killed by passing cars.
ReplyDeleteI think the councils are pleased to keep the verges overgrown - it saves them lots of money.
DeleteThelma's reply is interesting - I hadn't thought of it like that. We always had masses of swallows and house martins in our barns. I just hope the present farmers don't destroy nests.
ReplyDeleteThe insects on the verges would either fly one way or the other, so I would guess that only 50% would cross the road and out of them not all would be hit by cars.
DeleteThis post led me off to read about swallows and swifts. I need to pay more attention, I guess. We have a lot of birds, including, frustratingly enough, the ones that have pryed their way into the eaves of the new house. We have shit all down the corner of our house, but unlike Old Lord Bath, we didn't smash down the nest. We can hear the baby birds making quite a racket these days, and once they are fledged we will seal up that corner to prevent them from nesting again. We will also install a bird house close by.
ReplyDeleteWe would feel privileged when starlings roosted in our eaves when I was a kid - despite the noise - but blocking it up for future visits would be the humane solution.
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