The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Wildlife => Topic started by: Fleecewife on August 30, 2012, 06:27:52 pm
-
We have just seen a new clutch of swallow eggs has hatched - Aug 30th. They might be a few days old, but not more. Our swallows usually leave in mid-Sept - is there any chance for this new brood to be flying and independant in time to go? In past years the last brood to hatch has often been left behind and they set off a bit later on their own, but I don't remember it being so late before. It's an awfully long way to South Africa :(
-
Mine are late too but one nest has had a disaster. The whole nest fell down in the bad weather and I found 3 dead chicks in the plant pot below :(
Sally
-
I've had several sets of swallows and a nest of housemartins fledge in July. Now I've got two more swallows nests, one in the goat byre and one in the coal shed. They can each only have been hatched a week.
As far as I can find out, they take 17-24 days to fledge. So I guess they'll be heading off on their own at the end of September. Will you tell yours to call and pick mine up on the way :)
-
Do you think it could be due to the odd weather we've had this year confusing the birds?
Hopefully well have a bout of warmer weather september/October to see the majority leave for Africa later than normal :fc:
-
last sunday we found the nest that was in the pigs hut had fallen and narrowly missed their water pail!!!! 3 babies still alive so the SPCA came and said they had a good chance as they had feathers, still warm but when they tried to fly ....plop to the ground, if only the nest had held for a couple more days!
-
Can you make a cardboard box ledge for them temporarily, staple gun it to where the nest was? I did this successfully once when my clumsy hubby caught a nest with the handle of the rake, as he put it away in the shed.
-
Yes you can repair a nest fairly easily. My OH used cement, chicken wire, string and sheeps wool to repair our House Martins nest when it got damaged by marauding sparrows and a heavy rain storm. Chicks had just hatched - they survived and the parents have raised 2 further broods in the now very odd-looking nest :thumbsup:
Jaykay - I will indeed ask my little swallows to collect yours on their way south ;D . We had a peep in the nest today and there are four chicks, at the punk hairstyle stage :love: all beak and begging
-
We have four just reaching 'hing oot the nest stage', ready to fly in a
week I reckon... :fc: Messy critters though.....
-
Ours fledged today :yippee: or rather two fledged and the other two are sitting on a beam not going anywhere ::)
-
we still have several nests of them look quite big though :farmer:
-
Mine have been whizzing round the goat byre for a couple of days now ;D
-
our's have been out the nest for a week but are determined to get back into the hay shed to roost - now poo everywhere!!! The one place I hoped they would avoid they want to nest in.
Anyway they are doing well and happily roost about my tools (now covered)
-
Went in byre this morning and found a nest up in eaves with 3 swallow babies in it, they look fairly new, parents are furiously feeding but all the other swallows are starting to line up on the telegraph wires prepearing to go, will the parents abandon these babies and go with the rest or will they wait until their own babies are ready to go? Think their might be another nest full of babies in the farrowing house, oh dear
mandy :pig:
-
never known them to leave the young reduced numbers for a while but they dont all come here in the one go :farmer:
-
Our second brood fledged about a fortnight ago and left over a week ago. Have even cleared up the mess
-
Went in byre this morning and found a nest up in eaves with 3 swallow babies in it, they look fairly new, parents are furiously feeding but all the other swallows are starting to line up on the telegraph wires prepearing to go, will the parents abandon these babies and go with the rest or will they wait until their own babies are ready to go? Think their might be another nest full of babies in the farrowing house, oh dear
mandy :pig:
That was my initial worry, but I don't think they will abandon them in the nest. What will be interesting will be to see at what stage they will leave them on their own once they have fledged. Most years we have some young birds which seem to follow on later, after the main flock has headed south. I worry that those birds won't make it the whole way, unless it's a very favourable year.
I think a lot of swallows altogether must perish either on the journey or when they get there, because there are never as many coming back as those that left :(
Let us know what happens with your newbies Mandy :fc:
-
Will do, i asked OH if they would survivie an English winter if they got left behind but he said it was unlikely as would be too cold and not enuff bugs around to feed them and i agree with you there seems to have been fewer return to us this year.
Mandy :pig:
-
I think some of these late fledglings don't go as far as Africa but maybe to the south of France and Spain - I read something somewhere about it once.
-
Bleedin swallows are kamakazy almost. I swear they are more of a surprise than a bat flying by your head in the dark.
Had loads here too this year flying around. A few nestings in the shed - crapping on my lights and equipment and such ;)
Interesting to read where they go and stuff. Never knew they went so far.
-
Oh they do make a horrendous mess :P . If you stand still for a minute they get you too ::) But they are truly worth it Bazzais. They are so tiny but they fly all the way down to South Africa (where they seem to roost in shrubby trees in large numbers, a bit like starlings here (or so I saw in a tv documentary :D )). They stay there to fatten up on all the insects down there then magically they fly all the way north again, right back to the place they were hatched. Wonderful :notworthy: They work so hard too raising three nestfuls of babies and catching all those flies we hate to feed them.
It's always a relief when they fly south in September and the clear-up can begin. Suddenly you can hear all the other birds which have had their songs drowned out by the swallow babble. The cat gets some peace from being dive-bombed every time she snoozes in the sunshine. But then when they come back in Spring they are so welcome :sunshine: I love the way they don't give a tinkers about humans, don't fear us, barely notice us, we are just there to inhabit the buildings they need for nesting 8)
-
We saw a gathering today on our power lines of at least 50 swallows.
We still have 3 left that are returning to their nest area in our out-building though.
Can't be long now.....
-
The cat gets some peace from being dive-bombed every time she snoozes in the sunshine.
Our cats get dive-bombed too!
Bleedin swallows are kamakazy almost. I swear they are more of a surprise than a bat flying by your head in the dark.
When we had our bat survey done a few weeks ago one of the four 'batmen' was stood near the outbuilding the swallows nest in. They were getting quite perturbed by his presence and I warned him that they were going to dive-bomb him but he didn't believe me until a succession of them flew past his nose end and frightened the life out of him. Ha told you.
-
The main party of swallows left two days ago just before this awful weather descended, we have though 3 small families left, a set of parents, one juvenile and a baby not fledged yet in one of the pig huts, two juveniles in a stable and a set of parents and 3 fledglings in the byre, hopefully the weather will improve and enable them to get away to warmer climes. :fc:
mandy :pig:
-
Ours all left end of last week. :(
-
Our main lot went last week but left two youngsters (fledged) behind. The martins have also left 4 youngsters behind but I think they will all go when the low pressure system heads south again.
-
ours are still here yet i think it was three or four nests that had young in them :farmer: