Author Topic: Swallows'23 (Read 28116 times)

Fleecewife · « **Reply #30 on:** September 16, 2023, 02:26:38 pm »

It does seem to have been a really scattered departure this year. Most of our swallows left a month ago which is unusually early, then I realised a few were still around. Yesterday I noticed a couple of young ones still flying around the barn. They will surely go now. During the mini late heat wave there were lots of newly hatched flying insects for them to feast on, especially over water, but including a lot of butterflies, but now it's really quite cool here in the south of Scotland so there isn't much left for them to eat.
Personally I am dreading the winter, but looking forward to the migrant birds' return gives me something to look forward to

Possum · « **Reply #31 on:** September 24, 2023, 01:52:06 pm »

There are still a few flying over the centre of our village. Very mild at the moment so still lots of insects around. Looking back at last year, Penninehillbilly saw some in Yorkshire on 1st October so we may have another week to go

chrismahon · « **Reply #32 on:** September 24, 2023, 04:59:52 pm »

Despite the silly temperatures here (+4C over seasonal and a new record for September) all ours left yesterday. Their numbers began to reduce last week, but despite all the flying insects, there are no more flying about. Perhaps they can only eat so much?

Possum · « **Reply #33 on:** October 02, 2023, 12:33:06 pm »

They are STILL here. And there are some young chiff-chaffs as well.

Must be the warm weather. It was 17 degrees here last night, not the 6-7 degrees that we normally have at this time of year.

Possum · « **Reply #34 on:** October 08, 2023, 11:38:41 am »

They've all gone now. Haven't seen any for a couple of days. They probably took advantage of the north-westerly wind that we had in the middle of the week.

We've still got a couple of chiff-chaffs though. I've read that some have started to overwinter in southern England so it will be interesting to see what happens.