Tuesday 11 August 2009

The swallows are gathering


For the past few days the swallows have been gathering on the electric wires that run the length of the fields opposite our house, not for their final flight but just grouping together in readiness.It will be a couple of weeks before they finally go.

Sadly each year the numbers decline, when we first moved here they would fill all three wires the length of the fields now it's less than half.

They leave as they arrive with much excitement, chittering and chattering the whole time.The swifts have mostly gone. They arrive swooping the air screeching and screaming, but their departure is silent and goes almost unnoticed. One day you are just aware they are no longer there.

Unfortunately there seems to be very few house martins about anymore, in our area at least. I only saw a couple of sightings this year.

There will, as always be a few stragglers, the brood of swallows in the feed shed are less than a week old, so it will be a while before they leave on their amazing journey.



2 comments:

A Green and Rosie Life said...

The swallows are still very active here and do not, as yet, appear to be thinking about moving on. But despite the glorious weather it is beginning to feel very autumnal - the day started with mist, heavy dew and cobwebs and I picked lots of plums and blackberries this afternoon.

Rosie x

Sandra said...

I love seeing the cobwebs with the early morning dew on them.

Virtually no plums here this year due to heavy frost earlier in the year and mostly the later smaller blackberries so none picked as yet.