What a relief it was when the swallows returned to the old Oast House at Coopers Farm. When we first came they were plentiful, there would be thirty or forty at the end of summer lining up on the telegraph wires getting ready to fly back to Africa. But now there are far fewer, partly because insect numbers are so down and partly because the growing number of barns being converted to houses makes finding a suitable place to nest harder and harder.
Swallows nests are scruffy affairs made from wet mud which, combined with grasses, hardens to form a solid cup lined with feathers. They are usually built on ledges or between beams in farm buildings and they like it dark and untidy. About half of them return to the same nest year after year, or nearby, and fledged chicks will fly around the area in their first summer checking potential new sites near to mum and dad. Having spent the winter in the sun the males arrive back in the UK in the early spring a couple of weeks before the females and after some perfunctory DIY on the old nest, chucking out the old debris and fixing the cracks with more mud, it’s as good as new and ready to move into. Then you just need to find a suitable partner.

Swallows are socially monogamous and form pairs that build nests and care for their young, not for life but for the whole of a breeding season. But of course, there are always a few that don’t play by the rules and it seems that your average middle aged swallow does rather better with the ladies than one might expect!

Up to one-fifth of the chicks that hatch in any nest are fathered by a swallow other than the mother’s partner and in some nests, not one of the chicks belongs to the poor chap responsible for feeding them

Most swallows only live a couple of years, but occasionally some of the males will live longer and any who make it to three to four are surprisingly successful, not in forming partnerships that involve the hard work of rearing young but in attracting females looking for that something extra. It seems for female swallows experience is all, probably because the qualities related to having lived to such an advanced age are very attractive.

But it’s a bit sad really as up to one-fifth of the chicks that hatch in any nest are fathered by a swallow other than the mother’s partner and in some nests, not one of the chicks belongs to the poor chap responsible for feeding them.
While swallow numbers are down, they are doing much better than swifts (which look like swallows but don’t have that long forked tail). Their numbers have halved in the last twenty years because they build their nests in the eaves of houses and new modern houses don’t have eaves which leaves them nowhere to go. But there is a solution. For just £35 house builders can incorporate a hollow ‘swift brick’ into all new homes and the problem would be solved. This is a cheap measure that both the public and house builders support, but if it’s to make a real difference the government needs to pass legislation to make it compulsory for all new buildings to have a swift brick. So come on Kier, get the legislation back on the statute book and we can all help make that happen by signing the Save Our Swifts petition.
Enough feathered doom and gloom, I’ve just heard the first cuckoo. Male swallows perfectly saintly by comparison!