Swallows

[scc]

As long as I can remember we have had swallows at work. Two years ago we had 12 pairs and each raised 2 broods. Last year we we down to 3 pairs. From early April everything in swallowtown had to be covered up......they are very messy!
 Often at the work bench I would stop and listen to their mutterings just a few feet above me as they sat around on various pipes / cables, etc.
In "Tarka the Otter" Henry Williamson has this to say about them....."They twittered amongst themselves when the first stars gleamed in the water, for they had received a sign to leave the green meadows they loved so well. They talked in their undersong voices-which men seldom hear-, they are so soft and sweet..they talked of white and grey seas, of winds that fling away the stroke of wings, of great thunder shocks in the sun whitened clouds under, of wild rains and hunger and fatigue to come before the saw again the sparkles in the foam of the African strand. But none talked of the friends who would fall in the sea, or be slain in France and Spain and Italy, or break their necks against the glass of lighthouses, for the fork-tailed birds of summer had no thought for such things, or of death. They were joyous and pure in spirit and alien to the ways of man."
This year NONE       OK I don't have to clean up after them, but they are MISSED!    Soppy rant over , back to work            Terry

[Jo]

As long as I can remember we have had swallows at work. Two years ago we had 12 pairs and each raised 2 broods. Last year we we down to 3 pairs. From early April everything in swallowtown had to be covered up......they are very messy!
.......

Aren't they  My friend had a pair nest above his Bentley and it cost him a paint job 

I had a couple the other year checking out my workshop for nesting sites  It is nice to see them but best in someone else's garage 

Jo

[zeeprogrammer]

Every year we look forward to seeing the wildlife return to our back yard.

T plants Echinacea which brings several bright yellow finches, butterfly bushes which brings (duh) butterflies, and many other plants that sometimes brings a hummingbird or two.
Not to mention Cardinals which we grew up with back in the mid-west.
We also enjoy sitting in the pool as it gets dark and counting the bats. It was a sad year when they decimated by disease.

But T says the squirrel must die. 

[Brian Rupnow]

For many years we had a pet dog who was tied in the back yard, with his dog coop just off the end of our back deck. Poor old dog who was greatly loved by all passed away about eight years ago. Now, without the dog, our back yard is beginning to resemble animal planet. Four years ago, we had a possum in the back yard, which was an animal we never seen in Canada. We have endless numbers of red, black, and grey squirrels. We have chipmunks. We have a lot of wild turkeys coming up about once a day. Two weeks ago we had a huge porcupine walking around our back yard. Yesterday we had a big old woodchuck stick his head out from under the deck. The guy next door has a half dozen chickens, and each evening just at dusk, a big fat old racoon wanders up the fenceline and searches for any grain on the ground that the chickens may have missed.

[the artfull-codger]

We used to have at least 6-8 pairs every year but down to two this yr,don't know why,they nest in the same nests in my workshop,& even sit on the top of my thomas the tank engine weathervane blowing round & round & it has a 4 blade propellor on the front but doesn't bother them,they were late this yr.

[Pete49]

In our area we have fairy martins that build nests of mud like swallows and every year there were thousands that would cover the power lines before heading of for winter.last couple years they had reduced in number and this year we had none at all. Most puzzling. 

[Zephyrin]

At the first kick of spades, I used to see a robin to come, familiar and always extremely curious, a nice companion while gardening...
But this year, none came to see me when I was diging, yet I just spent 3 weeks in the garden, almost all day long !
no tit or finch as well...

[Admiral_dk]

   Man made mass ekstinktion 

We kill all their habitats, all the insects that they feed from .... etc.

More than a 100 species goes ekstinkt every day now world wide .... but we still insist on burning fossil fuel and we won't change our way - no I'm not any better than the next guy.