Yesterday noted a very large gathering numbering hundreds of Hs Martins with a scattering of Swallows around the Blaenddol area. They were present all day and at one stage I had over a hundred birds on the power lines in the garden and at least fifty on one piece of wall; it all looked very ‘Hitchcock’. My wife was convinced we were about to be inundated with nestsJ. Nice to see such impressive numbers; the Swifts left last week after a couple of fantastic low level displays some might say they were feeding I’m still convinced it’s a bit of showmanship and their way of saying au revoir or perhaps tutaonana or possibly hwyl am nawr ? My two remaining nesting HsM pairs both gave up last week giving a total of only four broods from five nests no doubles compared to six broods from three nests last year. Winter project this year is to reproduce some fancy looking Swallow nests spotted in Corfu I only wish I could capture a bit of the Greek weather and release it in Bow Street J.
Tony Clark