Swallows

Its that time of year when we start checking our local sites for swallows nests. A bit of a mixed bag at the moment with the breeding birds seemingly up to 3 weeks late in their nesting attempts. One of the farm sites along the River Gowy had only two nests of which one had 4 young and the other only 1. There was plenty of activity in other outbuildings and I'll go back in a couple of weeks to see if there are any new nests.

Better news from Hoylake though where we found 7 active nests on a farm that has been continuously monitored for over 20 years. This is more like the number of pairs that used to nest here after a disappointing couple of years when they were down to 5 pairs. One nest had young old enough to be ringed and two nests had newly hatched young. Other nests were still at the egg stage.

One nest site that used to be very productive was in the unusual position of being built on an old motor bike wheel hanging on a wall. This nest site hadn't been sued for a few years so we were pleased to find it has currently got new occupants!

 Photo courtesy of Steve Williams of yours truly inspecting the 'Bike Wheel' nest.

Below: hard to believe this little bundle will soon be heading off for Africa if it survives. One of 4 young Swallows ringed in one nest.

Another local farm checked had 7 active nests of which one brood was ringed and two more to small.The other  our nests still contained warm eggs.