Last of the Summer ......

My gardening efforts were interrupted yesterday morning by the noise of a flock of around 30 swallows flying around and landing on the television aerials and trees nearby. Down tools and up camera for a session with these wonderful birds presumably having their last feeds before undertaking the flight to Africa. It is more than 10 years since we had a nesting pair in our garage (image 3, 2007) - unfortunately we had to evict them when we needed to convert the garage to a bedroom as our family size increased. The last image shows one of the youngsters taking a nap - it is most likely it is a descendent of our swallow family.

Slimbridge Visit 2

We spent our morning at Slimbridge in the hide overlooking South Lake and watched a flock of Black-tailed Godwits, Geese, Ducks and newly arrived Swallows and Sand Martins

Norfolk Tour - Welney WWT Reserve

Welcome to Norfolk to Jan and David from one cute and very small jumping spider and a rather muddy swallow. This was the first stop on our tour round some of Norfolk's bird reserves. Beautiful warm sunny day with enough birds to keep us occupied all day - Reed Warblers, Reed Bunting, Black-Tailed Godwit, Marsh Harrier, Lapwing, Peregrine and Heron (with  lots of nesting Avocets)

Late Swallow Brood at Welney Wildfowl Trust Centre

While many Swallows are getting ready for their migration to Africa, this pair have a quite young brood in one of the hides. Not grat photos as very cark, but good to get the feeding action and the ejection of a faecal pellet. Very smart bee (ID to follow) and  a Hobby with a mouse(140mm lens!) - I thought it was a Kestrel.

Hirundines at Kingcombe Lodge Lakes

 A definite challenge trying to capture the moment when the Swallows and House Martins touch the surface of the Lake to pick up water. Great fun as they do great acrobatic tricks as they emerge.

Our Swallow is back

A male swallow was perched on our conservatory door this morning - the first seen this year (6th and 7th last two years)and looking decidedly tatty. We have closed the garage this year and opened a side shed door. I do hope they take to the new quarters - we have too much good stuff stored in the garage to have droppings everywhere.

Beefly flight (and swallows)

Some experiments on the shutterspeed needed to stop the wing movement in the Bee Fly. These were taken at 500th, 1600th, 2500th and 5000th of a second with corresponding change in ISO speed. Only the fastest shuitterspeed was able to stop the wing movement of these hovering insects

A first sighting of one of our Swallows at the bungalow yesterday (7th April) - last year's date was April 6th!