Swallows

Perhaps no bird signifies the British summer quite like the Swallow.
Every year from March these beautifully graceful fliers arrive from Southern Africa to breed on these shores, only to make the long and dangerous journey back to the sunshine around October.

After the cold winter months, the first Swallow of the spring is always a momentous day and a sign that warmer weather is just around the corner.
I get a lot of satisfaction from watching Swallows...Their mesmerizing aerial displays can leave you almost in a hypnotic state and trying to second guess which direction these supremely fast birds will take next is a task nigh on impossible!

Sadly, Swallows like so many of our migrant birds are in decline in the UK and a major factor is the same old story...Loss of habitat.
Thankfully this is not the case at a farm down the road from my home...
This farm offers perfect surroundings for these lovely birds and the farmer, I'm pleased to say cares very much about the plight of the birdlife on his land.

Every year Swallows return to this farm in large numbers and nest in the barns and outbuildings.
They are a familiar and very welcome sight during the summer months, swooping low across the fields and resting briefly on telephone lines...
I'm pleased to say that this year appears to be another bumper season for my local Swallows, with plenty of young despite some losses to the local Little Owls.

Modern building techniques don't really do much to help Swallows and new building regulations now insist on vents covering the soffits which have traditionally been used by the birds.
Fortunately our local farmer is only too aware of this problem and all his buildings have plenty of access points for the Swallows.

I payed a brief visit yesterday morning to see how this years batch of youngster were getting on and I was very pleased to see these fledglings at the side of the farmhouse...

Lapwings

After Saturday nights Golden Plover, Sunday brought another encounter with a member of the Plover family...The Lapwing.

Pennington Flash was the venue for Sunday mornings birding and the Flash is always a good place to spot these wonderful birds.
I've told you in the past about the sad decline of UK Lapwings especially in their once familiar farmland habitat, but that was only half the story...
Lapwings are equally at home in farmers fields, high moorland, coastal estuary's and large inland bodies of water.
Pennington Flash is the latter and offers a rich variety of habitat which is perfectly suited to these birds.

It's always a lovely sight to see Lapwings gathering over the Flash, more often than not mobbing other birds or bullying them away from prime feeding spots.
The Lapwing is also know as the Peewit in reference to it's distinct call and feeds mainly on worms and insects.
The soft vegetation around the edges of the Flash are perfect hunting grounds for these fine looking birds.

There are good numbers of juvenile Lapwing scattered around Penny at the moment which is very promising.
The young are fairly easy to identify due to their paler colour and much less pronounced crest...

Lapwings are also one of the easiest birds to distinguish in flight, due to their rounded wing pattern which has a very distinctive black and white colouration...

One of the things that makes the Lapwing a firm favourite of mine is quite simply...They are just such beautifully photogenic birds!