House Martins, Swallows & Swifts

4th April, 3 House martins and 2 swallows arrived today, feeding over the river ... I heard them first then spotted them .... I live in South Wales.... any one else spotted them ?

Spruce

 

Swallows, we don't have house martians or swifts
we have 4 now, we did see the first 2 on the 5th april and miss jiff thought she heard them on the 4th april

 

I didn't see any all last summer, they never seemed to nest around here but they were always in the sky during June - August.

Used to see quite a few but its pretty much down to zero now.

 

Dozens of Sand Martins and House Martins with just a few Swallows yesterday around the gravel pits here, they are still arriving in large numbers but have held off flying across the channel against the northerly winds recently. Swifts are always later, late April early May and will leave earlier too.

 

I usually have House Martins here but I doubt they'll turn up for quite a while. The weather still thinks it's winter.

 

Very poor year indeed. A few earlier on April /May, now we are lucky to see two in the skies over our riverbank house. There used to be dozens.

 

I have lots here in South Wales ... but 1st time they haven't nested on the front of the house

 

I've seen only two, on two occasions so far.
Doubt I will see any more now, unless we do at some point get a few warm days and the ants swarm.

 

Only one pair of nesting Swallows here this summer. Have had anything up to 11 pairs over the years. This year’s first clutch have just fledged. 6 which I think is a good number? They all fledged at the same time, usually you get a couple who are later to take the plunge and start to fly. I absolutely adore watching them flying about in the evening. It never fails to amaze me how acrobatic they are. The pair did not arrive until well into May, usually they arrive here in the middle of April. I think there have been a couple of years when there have been 2 even 3 lots of babies but doubt there will be time now for a 2nd batch perhaps, but not very knowledgeable on them, just feel privileged to be able to watch such wonderful little birds.Our 2 cats will be delighted to see them depart however, they get dive bombed by the adults if anywhere near the nest and both make a hasty retreat indoors, big wooooses

 

I have seen as many Swifts as Swallows and House Martins but all are low in numbers.

 

Spruce said 'I have lots here in South Wales ...

Nice to have some good news. Lets hope other areas are also doing well.

 

We usually get a lot of all of them down here , but have noticed the numbers seem to have dramatically dropped this year.

 

House Martins fly around my garden for a few days as they arrive or leave the country but haven't nested here for some years. This year a few have stayed but I don't know if they have nested nearby.

 

We usually have a lot of house martins but this year only a few turned up, stayed a couple of days, saw there was no bugs about due to the cold and flew off .
About 18 swifts still zipping about.

 

After a fair amount of x certificate “ stuff” going on our resident for the summer Swallows are busy building nest mk11. They normally use the same nest again so not sure why the new build. Hope we don’t need our long ladders for a while, yup making the new nest right on top of the ladders. If will take a real emergency to disturb them.