Urban Swallows

The Swallow is perhaps our most familiar summer visitor. It is a species for which we have great affection and one that can be found breeding across most of Britain, avoiding only the uplands, the most extensively wooded land and rarely penetrating beyond the fringes of our urbanised areas. For many of us the Swallow is the true harbinger of spring, a symbol of annual renewal and a bird whose arrival we watch for with eager anticipation. For those whose existence is more strongly tied to the urbanised landscape the Swallow is replaced in this role by the Swift, a species which has taken more readily to the built environment.

My walk into work takes me through the centre of one particular urbanised landscape and were it not for my regular birdwatching trips out into the wider countryside, it would be the Swift rather than the Swallow that was my harbinger of spring. Most mornings, my walk through town is accompanied by screeching Swifts but for the last two weeks there has been a very different sound, the twittering song of a Swallow. It appears that a pair of Swallows has taken up residence alongside the formal gardens of King’s House, the male delivering his charming song from television aerials and telephone wires. It seems an unlikely location, especially as his mate has been prospecting for a suitable nest site in the doorways of the neighbouring houses. The large circular wall lights might well make a sturdy platform onto which the nest could be built but I am not sure that the householders will be overly tolerant of their newly acquired neighbours.

The absence of Swallows from urbanised landscapes is linked to the availability of food and the Swallow’s chosen method of feeding. While Swifts will feed high above the rooftops, Swallows occupy a layer of sky that is much closer to the ground, feeding well below the height favoured by both Swifts and House Martins. Here they take larger insects, like flies, and such feeding opportunities would seem rather limited here in town. Perhaps they will be able to find sufficient insects by feeding above the formal gardens but it could prove a costly decision to nest here. My guess is that these are young and inexperienced birds, since breeding adults usually return to the same site in consecutive years and these are the first Swallows I have seen set up territory here since I arrived more than a decade ago. If they are young birds, then they are likely to have been born locally, since most birds return to within 30km of the nest in which they were raised. It will be very interesting to see how they fare over the coming weeks.