A secret swallow nest

Next to the chicken pen I have a shed to keep all the chicken food dry. Well, a couple of years ago someone smashed the window from the inside. It was a bit like one of those Jonathan Creek mysteries.
Eventually the mystery was solved. A hen, attempting to accumulate a secret stash of eggs, had gone and got herself locked in overnight. Goodness knows quite how, but she had then smashed her way out.

I attempted to fix the window with a spare pane of glass, but on the very last nail the pane broke in two. Ever since then, that window has consisted of two overlapping broken sheets of glass, which has created a narrow gap along the top.

Why am I telling you about this?
Well not long ago I found a tiny broken eggshell on the floor of said shed. It was so delicate that when I picked it up it simply turned to powder in my big, clumsy hands. I looked up to see where the egg had come from and there, just above the shed door, was a swallow nest! We go in that shed twice a day to get chicken food, yet an enterprising swallow had managed to build a nest, lay eggs, incubate them and hatch them without us even noticing!
You'll see from the swallow facts at the bottom of this page that the female swallow must have been sitting, unnoticed, for over 2 weeks, let alone managing to construct a mud nest without me noticing.


I left the nest in peace.

The next time I looked at the nest, a few days later, I could just see the crown feathers of its young occupants. As I held up the phone to take a picture, they all opened their gapes. They did this three times.

14th July

19th July

Over the next couple of weeks I kept an eye on the nest. I didn't want to disturb it, but the swallows had built it just a couple of inches above head height over a door which we have to access every time we feed the chickens.

21st July

The swallowlets grew at an amazing rate. You could usually only see three faces, but I can assure you there were four squeezed into that tiny nest. They learned after that first time and always remained absolutely motionless and silent whenever I was around.

26th July

27th July

 

Then yesterday a very excited Sue returned from feeding the chickens. She had just witnessed a young swallow's first flight, describing how it perched on the broken pane of glass torn between escaping Sue and launching into the big wide world. Eventually it fluttered its wings and stepped into the air, before flying out over the soft fruit patch to explore Swallow Farm from the air.

This morning, here is what I found in the chicken shed.



29th July

The whole family had fledged. They left the guinea fowl feathers which lined their nest, but there was no sign of the swallow family. I looked over the veg patch, where swallow families dart and chatter at this time of year. There are several nests in the stables, and with two or three clutches a year that adds up to quite a lot of swallows by late summer. They congregate over the farm, sometimes attracting the unwanted attention of a hobby. As I stared up, I wondered which ones were the chicken shed family.

I'll leave you with a few facts, taken from www.garden-birds.co.uk

Nesting

Both adults build a nest from mud and plant fibres against a beam or shelf in buildings or a ledge on cliffs. Existing nests are often refurbished, and there are instances where nests have been reused for nearly 50 years.
The eggs of the Swallow are about 20 mm by 14 mm in size, and are smooth, glossy, and white with reddish speckles. The duties of incubating the eggs are performed by the female. The newly-hatched young are fed by both adults, who catch insects on-the-wing and collect them in their throats before returning to the nest. Once fledged, the youngsters receive in-flight food from their parents.

Breeding Data

Breeding Starts	Number of Clutches	Number of Eggs	Incubation (days)	Fledge (days)
April-May	2-3	3-8	14-16	17-24

An Easter Swallow

Yesterday was Easter Sunday. I haven't turned religious, but it marked the most important day in the calendar. It is not a fixed date but it is one which marks hope and new growth.
For as I was digging out a new pond, I happened to glance up just at the right time to see a swallow disappearing through the window into the stables. Before I continue, I'd like to do something very unusual and apologise for being wrong. It's not the apology which is rare, it's me being wrong! But I did say in a recent blog that the swallows wouldn't be back until later in the month. So the appearance of this single swallow took me somewhat by surprise. But when I checked up, they returned on 8th April last year, so three days earlier this year.
The morning had seen a large flock, maybe 50, of wild swans departing to the north, so it was definitely a case of out with the winter and in with the summer.
Last year six swallows returned together and alerted me to their presence with their excited overhead chattering. This year's bird is a lone bird, but it headed straight into the stable as if it knew where it was going and rested up there for quite some time before heading into the sky over the farm to feed up.

For reasons I won't go into (not to do with Sue), I am making myself scarce in the house at the moment and spending about 12 hours a day outside. I am achieving plenty. I have had some help too. For the guinea fowl have been putting a lot of effort into turning my onion bed into a very fine tilth.

I obliged them by planting all my onion sets today, 350 of them in total.
I have placed them in rows 10" apart (25cm new money). When I have squeezed the spacing in the past, not only do the onions come out smaller but hoeing down the rows is a nightmare, normally resulting in the beheading of at least a couple of onions.
I have spaced the Giant Stuttgarters at 6" apart to give them plenty of space to grow into fine specimens. The Red Barons are closer at 4" apart.

Needless to say, I've netted them all just in case the guinea fowl return!

Swifts, Swallows, Yellow Wagtails, Grey Partridges, Little Owls and a Hawk Moth

Getting any work done outside today has been a trial. At times the showers have been so frequent that someone forgot the dry spells in between.

But as I was unloading bagfuls of horse muck I was delighted to note a trio of Swifts scything through the air. It was only yesterday that I saw my first of the year along the North Norfolk coast - a very successful journey in search of lambs - more later. Swifts are the last birds to arrive back from their wintering quarters. They arrive en masse and suddenly the skies seem full of screaming devilbirds. True masters of the air, they only land to nest, even mating on the wing.
And so they wheeled over the veg plot, briefly mingling with the Swallows which are ever-present now that they are building their nests in the stables. These two species mean that summer is on its way, not that you'd know it right now.















Another harbinger of summer comes in the form of the delightful, always busy Yellow Wagtail. Most summers a pair nests in the crops and spend much of their time in the pig enclosure. Occasionally they encounter Swallows collecting mud for their nests.
One summer visitor we've not heard back yet is the cuckoo. One usually turns up most years for a few days, but they're having a hard time of things at the moment and numbers are falling.

With all this talk of summer's visitors, I mustn't forget some of the farm's regulars. The Little Owls have been more showy of late. They probably have young to feed and so are forced to be active during daylight hours. If I get up really early in the morning, they too can be seen using the posts around Daisy's enclosure as hunting perches.
More surprising, about a week ago, was a sudden announcement by several grey partridges, conspicuously calling and chasing each other about for a whole afternoon and evening. I guess it was males full of bravado, but goodness knows where they came from after an absence of well over a year. And true to form, I've only had two brief encounters with them since. Still, it's very nice to know they are still about. Quite a rare bird these days.

And finally, summer brings other surprises too. The spring seems to have been a good one for butterflies, with tortoiseshells, brimstones and orangetips in good numbers, but this creature is no butterfly. It spent a day perched on one of our window frames. It is a Poplar Hawk Moth. Not rare at all, but still very nice to see.

The Swallows Are Back!

Today marked what for me is probably the most important day of the year in Nature's calendar.
I spent the whole day outside preparing the beds, for it won't be long before they start to fill up. The day started out sunny but with a chill breeze, enough to send me indoors for a while. But by late morning it was a beautiful spring day. I slogged my guts out, mostly taking advantage of perfect soil conditions to do the weeding before the rotavator comes out.
Now whether I subconsciously heard them or not I don't know, but I got to thinking about when the swallows would return. This would be a perfect day for them to start trickling through. Not five minutes later I had my answer as a swallow chattered above my head.
Now one swallow does not make a summer, but what about six?
The swallows don't head straight for the stables. They may not even be 'my' swallows, though they always linger a while over the farm. It makes me wonder if they scout out their breeding site for a few days. And I always wonder just how many of last year's birds have made it back. Do the young return with them, or are their numbers augmented by new birds?
If only I could ring them, so many questions would be answered.

Anyway, important thing is that they are back.

And that means it's time to really get going with the growing.
So this evening I dusted down all the wooden plant labels and gave them a scrub.

I could end up playing pick-up-sticks with these!

I'll be out again tomorrow and I'll be looking forward to seeing my old acquaintances again.

Raining in the Polytunnel

It's June. The sun has been shining. And the swallows are feeding young. Could it be that summer is threatening to arrive?

It has been a bit chilly here on the East coast though, with an unusual northeasterly wind blowing straight from The Wash and across The Fens. Still, the soil has warmed up and the plants know it, especially the weeds.

I've been trying to care for the seedlings in the polytunnel and moving them into the ground outside as soon as I thought they were big enough to look after themselves. But the wind and the sun have been drying out the soil and those poor baby plants haven't quite had time to send their roots down far enough.

Up till now the rain situation has been almost perfect this year. A couple of nights of rain each week.

But last week the hosepipe came out to save the young sweetcorn, the beans and the newly emerging seedlings across the veg plot. The baths are now empty of rain water, mostly gone on watering can relays into the polytunnel.

I prefer not to have to use tap water for the garden, but at this time of year the plants are not leafy enough to shade the soil and their roots are not deep enough.

And in the polytunnel, which no rain penetrates, young plants can wilt to the point of death in seemingly no time at all. I tend tray upon tray of baby vegetable plants, herbs and flowers every morning and evening, more often if I can. But give them too much water and they go the other way.

So I've been endeavouring to move as many plants as I can to the great outside. But every evening I have to stop early in order to water the plants in the tunnel.

That is, until this evening.

For this evening it rained in the polytunnel.

Well, technically it wasn't really rain, more a hosepipe connected up to an overhead irrigation system. But it sure was a shock for the plants. I hope they appreciate it.

In the process I got absolutely drenched, for the spiders had taken up residence in the pipework and their webs (and bodies) clogged up the sprayers. It was far easier to dismantle them and clear out the pipes and nozzles with the water still on!
I did, however, forget that my phone was in my pocket. It completely packed up, but was back to its old self in the morning.

As for those swallows. We have three nests this year, down from last year's five.

All quiet in the stables - the swallows depart

Friday 7th September 2012
The start of another fine day.
After a very slow start, summer has stayed late this year.

The fence I've been constructing to mark the end of the garden.
I love the way it seems to organise the view
and makes a feature of the oldest of the Ash trees.

Every spring I look forward to that day when I open the stable doors and the first swallow swoops out past my ear. From then till the beginning of September there is a constant chattering in the stables, especially as I walk past first thing. But three days ago all went quiet. No longer are families of swallows swooping over the veg patch in the morning or perching on the wires. For, en masse, they have gone, away on their incredible journey back to Africa. And with them has gone the hobby which spent four days harassing them last week. You could always tell when it was around by the crescendo of angry twittering and the posse of adult swallows that went up to bravely confront it.
Despite many sightings each year, I've still to see a hobby actually take a swallow, but there are plenty of dragonflies around on the farm this year to stave off the hunger.

It's not often I recommend a book, as regrettably reading is not a pastime that I've spent much time on over the years, but my favourite author, discovered in my teacher role, is Michael Morpurgo, a prolific writer of children's books which are equally readable by adults.

The reason I mention this? In his book, Dear Olly, three separate stories are cleverly woven into one. One of those stories concerns itself with a swallow's migration from leafy Britain to tropical Africa, told from the swallow's point of view. There's an evil, shadowy hobby which looms over the flock on their journey.
Well worth a read.

The departure of the swallows does leave a certain emptiness in the stables and over the fields, but it paves the way for a new season, an exciting time for me as a birder. It's all change. Apart from the familiar resident birds, all the summer visitors will depart and a whole host of wintering species will appear. Marsh Harriers will be replaced by Hen Harriers, flocks of waders and ducks will wheel about in the air, finches and larks will mass together. And in the change over, a few birds will get lost and some, the rarest vagrants to these shores, will achieve celebrity status attracting hoards of obsessive twitchers to pay homage to them. And I will be there!
Meanwhile, I am just very happy that a Snipe has taken up temporary residence in the dyke at the bottom of my land.

Sex in the strawberry bed!



Monday 25th June 2012

Two worms become one!
Amazing. Never seen this before.

Given the title of this post, it'll be interesting to see the number of page views I get (and the search criteria)!
If you're coming to this site for the first time, this may not be what you were expecting. But please take time to look around.

Swallow families
Back to more usual comings and goings.
It can be tricky to work out which swallow nests are occupied in the stables. It's too dark to see the nests well up in the rafters and the adult birds rarely visit their nest when I am present. They tend to sit on the doors twittering and tweeting (not in the modern sense of this word) until I move on. However, there is one way to be sure. Look underneath the nests, and while you're at it you might want to move any machinery or tools before they become covered in guano!
So, I think we have four nests. The swallows have fledged from all of them and can be seen and heard wheeling around and chattering over the garden and stables. The young birds can be easily told by their lack of tail streamers.
Presumably the adult birds are teaching the young a trick or two, though the one that flew through the patio doors and couldn't find its way out again may not be the best teacher!
I caught it and released it back in the garden, where it flew off without even a glance back. It was a privilege to get to hold such a delicate and beautiful creature.

Presumably it won't be long before the swallows are back on their nests ready for a second brood. The same applies to the Yellowhammer which today started rattling out its song from atop a hawthorn bush. He has been silent for over a month.

Oops!
Today was like a summer's day...oh...forgot...it is summer.
I spent a lot of time on chicken affairs before turning my attention to the veg patch. In the sunshine, and with time to peruse progress in the various beds, the general prognosis for vegetable production this year has improved.
More on these matters tomorrow as I took a whole series of photos today, including some very funny pig photos, only to discover the memory card by the side of the computer when I got in this evening!

So tomorrow, if the weather holds, a re-shoot.

Geronimo is back

Gerry is back in fine fettle.
He's got his appetite back and put on a lot of weight.
I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, but the racing pigeon seems to have moved on!

We think maybe he got stung in the mouth by a bee. No evidence, except that he's being much more careful catching flies in the house. He normally eats them (yes, I know, it's disgusting) as soon as he catches them. But today he seemed to be a bit more wary. Would explain why he seemed so scared that day we thought we'd lost him, and why he's not been eating.

Today was a warm day, so Gerry stayed cool under a parasol.

But what's he looking at?

He can't reach these babies. If he could, he would.
But he does enjoy watching the adults going to and fro.

Black Gold

Saturday 2nd June 2012

See! I was serious about wearing the bee suit when mowing the lawn, though the bees behaved themselves today. With rain and showers forecast for the week ahead, I had another mammoth mowing session today, doing both lawns, the goose paddock, the veg patch, the soft fruit garden, the orchard and I carved a couple of paths through the meadow right to the end of the land. 

Fed up with the damp grass clogging up the machine, I gaffer-taped the metal contact at the back and bypassed the need for a collection box or a deflector. (Do not try this at home! The safety mechanism is there for good reason!) Notwithstanding this warning, the plan worked fabulously, though the mowings flew yards out of the back of the machine. This was OK when I mowed North to South, but when I turned I got a face full of grass and, over time, the back of my jumper began to resemble a football pitch!

Two things happened during the day to interrupt my mowing. First, and delightful it was too, I paused to watch a swallow playing with a goose feather. Four times it caught the feather mid air, only to release it and swoop again. I thought it was collecting the feather for its nest, but since it eventually left it to float back to the ground, I assume the swallow was either playing or just plain gave up.

The second thing that happened was this...

A bumper apple year last year meant that Don was unable to eat his way through all of his stored apples. This is very good news indeed for the pig family.

Black Gold

Achievement for the day went to the comfrey bin though. I hadn't checked the bucket for a while and got a really good surprise when I did. Expecting to possibly find a few drips of oily black liquid, instead I found over an inch of liquid. This will be diluted about 15:1 to make a fertiliser. And this from just one cut of less than half the comfrey bed. With about five cuts a year, that's a lot of fertiliser. The reason that comfrey is so good at collecting nutrients from the soil is that its roots go down as far as 10 feet. It can be soaked in water to give a fertiliser or leaves can be compressed and the black sludge collected as they break down. The leaves can also be used as a mulch or placed into planting holes to give plants a good start in life.

Ideally the leaves are cut just before the plant flowers. This is when they are at their most potent. However, I like to leave some of the plants to flower for the bees and for their beauty.

Beware of the Fenland nettle
I once did a study on nettles as part of  a Field Biology course. It involved counting the stinging hairs on the surface of the leaves. There was an astonishing difference between the stingiest and the least stingy. (Please read these two words with a hard g.) It transpired that nettles evolve locally to become much more potent when they are subject to grazing. So the rabbits have a lot to answer for. Our nettles are like no others I have come across. They get you through jeans and gloves, and once stung they leave tingling and numbness for hours.

But nettles are, on the whole, a good thing... like any other 'weed', if they have a use then they are good as long as they are controlled. They provide an excellent habitat for insects and are the food plant of small tortoiseshell caterpillars as well as being the host plant to comma and red admiral butterflies and many moths. Not only that, but they can be used in a similar way to comfrey, so today I carefully cut one of our nettle patches and topped up the comfrey bin. Basically, I am using the comfrey and nettle leaves as a means to collect nutrients and transport them to where I want them.

100 up and Migrants arrive

I have spent much of the last week at work, on a butchery course, or doing inside jobs to avoid the frequent downpours. It's hard to get stuck into any big jobs in such circumstances, so I've been making frequent forays into the garden with the binoculars, eagerly awaiting the first returning migrants, whether they be just passing through or staying for the summer. At the same time, I've continued to marvel at the last of the winter's visitors, the Short-eared Owls, which now hunt the surrounding fields and dykes nightly.

Early in the week, the northerly airflow was interrupted by very stiff south-westerly winds. It brought with it a constant flow of gulls, but much more significantly a lone tern flew over my head as I weeded . It didn't hang around, but was one of the small influx of Arctic Terns which seem to arrive early each year on their way to their northern breeding grounds.

It also represented the 100th bird species I've seen on the farm.

Just as welcome was the first Swallow of the year, two weeks after their return date last year. In fact, last year's birds were accompanied by House Martin, Blackcap, Willow Warbler, Marsh Harrier and Yellow Wagtail, as well as Wheatears and Black Redstarts passing through. So far this year, we have had one Chiffchaff.

Well, by today, Friday, the Swallows have properly returned, with a few hanging around and flying in and out of the stables. At least this year I won't have to worry about creating mud pools for them so they can collect nest material. It's hard to believe that last year there were serious concerns about swallows not being able to nest as we waited and waited for the first rain since February.

The swallows are very, very welcome back to Swallow Farm.

At long last, too, came a male Blackcap around the pond and a Marsh Harrier to replace the Hen Harriers of winter. Frustrating were the two small waders which flew distantly along South Holland Main Drain. Unidentifiable at that range, or they would surely have been a farm tick. I can only think that they were probably Dunlin.

Eager as I am to reacquaint myself with summer's avian visitors, it is still the owls which mesmerise me. We still have two or three Short-eared Owls in the area. The great thing about these owls, besides their masked faces, is that they come out to hunt several hours before dark and have a habit of landing on the ground in the open. I suspect they have taken to roosting up in a nearby field of reeds and they have been giving a very good show over the bottom of the land almost every night. This evening I only had distant views of them, along with a Barn Owl, until one followed the dyke along to the bottom of the meadow, where it met up with a Barn Owl from the opposite direction. Both birds were excellently lit by a bright, low evening sun reflecting off the flowering yellow rape field.

One Swallow Does Not A Summer Make



Sunday 15th April 2012



One Swallow Does Not A Summer Make

BBS. To give it the full title, Breeding Birds Survey. I have volunteered to survey, twice a year, a randomly chosen square of the English countryside. So what do I get? A mundane square of arable farmland, not exactly diverse. It won't take long to work out which species it holds, nor will that list exactly be a long one. However, it is one brick in a much larger wall, and hopefully will contribute in some small way to our knowledge about breeding bird populations.

In fact, the species I do expect to see, such as Skylark, Yellowhammer and Reed Bunting are those species which are in trouble. It's obvious for all to see, as is the cause - modern industrial, chemical farming. For this reason it is necessary to spend years jumping through hoops trying to prove beyond doubt the effect and the cause. There is probably nobody who can change what is happening and certainly nobody in power who wants to overturn a whole system of farming for the sake of a few of our feathered friends.
The best we can probably hope to do is to avert the worst effects and create islands of habitat in which these species can survive and thrive.

On a more positive note, we did see a Corn Bunting perched atop a bush, waiting for the sun to warm it up so it could deliver its jingling song. They raise their head to the air and sing with pure abandonment. This is the first Corn Bunting I've seen in the area and gives me hope of eventually seeing one on the farm. Of all the farmland birds, this is perhaps the species which is most at risk of disappearing. We also saw a Swallow, my first of the year after the recent northerly airflow brought spring migration to a grinding halt a couple of weeks ago. They should soon be appearing in the stables where at least five pairs bred last year. Bring it on I say, for my ailing body struggled to cope with the harsh winds today. Summer is most definitely not here yet.

Nor does a BLACK-WINGED STILT

Not the same bird,
but this is what a Black-winged Stilt looks like.
And a good portion of those legs are under the water!
It really does walk on stilts!

I was so ill yesterday, I did not even look at my pager. If I had, I would have known that there was a BLACK-WINGED STILT just down the road. A rare wanderer from Continental Europe and the Mediterranean, this bird had appeared at a small local reserve called Willow Tree Fen.

It seems this bird had arrived in Southern Ireland, dropped in to Oxfordshire for a day, Rutland Water in Leicestershire for a day, then continued its journey into South Lincolnshire. I was lucky. It decided to stay more than just the one day, and early on Sunday afternoon I was watching this black and white bird with its ridiculously long, bubblegum pink legs. Somehow there conspired to be a bitingly cold wind and a strong heat haze. Then I guess that's the nature of April, a transition month.