Talk Morgan Forums Community General Photo Gallery One swallow does not a summer make

Thankfully there were hundreds of swallows this morning at my home from home, summer must be coming!
Beautiful to watch them fly and close enough to touch.
Sorry it’s only phone quality….





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They are flying quite low, that means rain!

It did indeed rain, hence no Morgan excursion today.

In the shed yesterday with the door open - a swallow flew in and tried to leave via the window. I actually picked him/her up and took it to the door and released him non the worse for the experience. It felt uplifting to handle this lightweight, delicate little bird who had arrived here all the way from Africa under his own steam - remarkable. Great photos Ewan, thank you.

Thanks for those images Ewan, lovely and the one with corn in looks like a painting

Beautiful landscape.

We have many swallows around our house. They like to dive bomb me when I’m mowing with the riding lawn mower.

Sportster .... our Swallows nest here, but over-winter in Africa (fair old trek for something weighing a few ounces!!) ..... where do your Swallows go in Winter??

K

Central and South America. Agree, really amazing the distance these little birds travel.

We are on a migration route here so we get quite a few groups pass through before "ours" arrive. Mainly House Martins and Swifts settle here for the summer. "Ours" have been here for a couple of weeks now.

A little further north of here at the we were surprised to see Swallows in winter and we were told that they are an alpine variety, in English they would seem to be called Crag Martins. It seems that they send summer in the Alps, nesting in the cliffs, and then winter at the lower levels. You can still get a lot of snow where we saw them but the river never freezes so apparently the cold does not worry them and the get enough insects to live.

At the end of summer it is a little sad to see "ours" depart but the continueing migration lasts several weeks, ours are always the first to leave and the last to arrive so I suppose they must winter further south than the later departures.

The weight of a typical swallow is 20gm, which is less than an ounce (28gm), so beware of the massive ones that weigh a few ounces !