| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Green Rosie |
Swallows nest buildingFollowing on from Tavascarow's amazing bird photos, there's a short video here on our blog of the swallows nest building in the toy shed if anyone would like a look
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| wellington womble |
I love 'our' swallows. They nest in the garage loft (the only secure bit of our barn style garage) and drive himself nuts by poohing on his power tools. Tough, I say, if they don't mind sharing, neither should he. | ||
| sean |
There's a pair that nest at the chippy where I work. It always cheers me up when they arrive. 
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| marigold |
Nice video! I saw a pair of housemartins the other day. At least I think they were housemartins - I can't tell the difference between the various swoopy-swifty-swallowy birds, so I tend to call them all swoopy-swifty-swallowy things... | ||
| Tavascarow |
Beautiful.
Always been one of my favourite birds.
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| TheGrange |
i feel so mean right now 
we've removed the roof of the old garage ready for more building work, and my resident swallows will be returnign to nowhere to live, all the nest sites will be gone ...
hopefully they will move into the vacant stables
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| wellington womble |
Swifts scream (and are always very high), Housemartins blow raspberries (and live in eaves in towns and villages), and swallows chatter (and live in barns and other inside places in the country) In general, anyway - I'm sure there are exceptions. |
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| wipka84 |
Swifts are larger, usually very high and are a dark brown colour above and below wing. Swallows are smaller, blueish colour above, white under with a red throat. They also have long "streamers" at the end of their tail. House Martins have less pronounced streamers, more forked, smaller still, bluey black above, white under and have a patch of white on the top part between the body and tail that the swallow doesnt have. Sandmartins are the smallest and instead of bluey black of the house martin are browny tan colour above, white below without the white bit at the back and have a small brown collar. Or swoppy swifty swallowy things. |
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| nettie |
Yep housemartins have stubby V's for tails as opposed to the swallows with their long streamers, and they have bright white "waistcoats" and sound like dolphins
We have some that have come back for the third year running. They are nesting in the eaves above our bedroom window (Our favourite sound of Spring). Does anyone here know anything about their behaviour? They seem to get all their little friends in to help out with the nest building in a frenzied 20 mins of activity, then they all disappear off for most of the day, coming back to do a bit more late afternoon. Do they all go off and help each other build nests in little gangs for most of the day? I know they all help with the fledging, I've seen up to 20 of them trying to encourage the babies out of "our" nest. |
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| Mutton |
We had ones on our house when I was a kid. They used to fly all the way down to the river valley to get mud and all the way back up.
Didn't disappear during the day, they were always busily building, or feeding mate on nest/brood. Did see the co-operation, especially when they had two broods one summer, and then Autumn turned up just before the youngsters were able to fly. Every house martin in the neighbourhood set about feeding them - the insects were arriving all day like there was a conveyor belt. And the youngsters made it out of the nest about three days after that started and off they all flew. |