[Anke]

We have never had a cuckoo within hearing distance here in 25 years, and hardly any house martins

Same here, no cuckoo (we have been here for over 13 years now), but the first pair of swallows is deciding where top build/revamp a nest in the goathouse. Only one pair though?

[mab]

I'm almost positive my pair are here and nesting, but they seem to disappear at times for a day or so - I guess i'll know for sure if/when eggs hatch.

[Fleecewife]

We have never had a cuckoo within hearing distance here in 25 years, and hardly any house martins

Same here, no cuckoo (we have been here for over 13 years now), but the first pair of swallows is deciding where top build/revamp a nest in the goathouse. Only one pair though?

At least they have arrived!  Even if no more come this year, the numbers will build up again and get back to normal for next year.  The swallows here seem to spend all their time shreiking and playing on the wind, then zooming into the barn and back out.  One day there will be a crash when they come out at our head height at full speed.

[Rupert the bear]

We have never had a cuckoo within hearing distance here in 25 years, and hardly any house martins

Same here, no cuckoo (we have been here for over 13 years now), but the first pair of swallows is deciding where top build/revamp a nest in the goathouse. Only one pair though?

At least they have arrived!  Even if no more come this year, the numbers will build up again and get back to normal for next year.  The swallows here seem to spend all their time shreiking and playing on the wind, then zooming into the barn and back out.  One day there will be a crash when they come out at our head height at full speed.

Been there ! dont know who was more surprised , handy tip , keep your mouth shut,just saying .

[Fleecewife]

We have never had a cuckoo within hearing distance here in 25 years, and hardly any house martins

Same here, no cuckoo (we have been here for over 13 years now), but the first pair of swallows is deciding where top build/revamp a nest in the goathouse. Only one pair though?

At least they have arrived!  Even if no more come this year, the numbers will build up again and get back to normal for next year.  The swallows here seem to spend all their time shreiking and playing on the wind, then zooming into the barn and back out.  One day there will be a crash when they come out at our head height at full speed.

Been there ! dont know who was more surprised , handy tip , keep your mouth shut,just saying .

 

[arobwk]

At last! 

[Fleecewife]

I am over the moon.  Today we have house martins having a good look at the artificial nests we put up for them a couple of years ago. We put these up because martins had previously had a couple of disastrous nest falls, but the boxes had been ignored last year.  I so hope the boxes meet with the birds' approval and we have martins nesting again.  One box is directly above our front door, but an advantage of lockdown is that we won't be having any visitors who would need to duck!
We first noticed the martins as they were zooming around greeting the swallows already here.  They do seem to interact.

[Fleecewife]

Tomorrow we shall have to roughen up the surface of the artificial nest as the mud the martins are trying to add to make the entrance hole smaller will not adhere.  I don't know where they are getting their mud as it's bone dry here but what they are adding is damp - perhaps they add a whole lot of spit.


My inbox says there's a reply here from [member=24384]in the hills[/member]  but it has not come through to my screen 

[in the hills]

I replied on this thread by mistake FW but Dan kindly moved my reply to the thread ..... Call of the Curlew.

[chrismahon]

We had swallows the first year nesting in the garage. The second year they arrived and flew away- I was painting a coop and the place stank of solvent. This year they arrived again and again flew away- I was working in there and have increased the lighting level 10 fold so it's a bit bright. Perhaps next year?


Last year we had hundreds of swallows gathering on the electricity cables to the house. They almost looked too heavy for it and when a Kestrel buzzed them they all took off simultaneously and made the cable swing.



We have a cuckoo in the woods but have never seen it. We also have the Golden Orioles back but haven't seen them yet this year. The Hoopoe have returned and are nesting nearby- one landed 3 metres from us but got frightened off by the chickens guarding their feeder. We also have a pair of Black Redstarts nesting above the old bread oven- one of the fledgelings was on the roof yesterday. They will be safe from the Jays and Magpies in there so may return, unless the Barn Owl scares them off.

[Rupert the bear]

Tomorrow we shall have to roughen up the surface of the artificial nest as the mud the martins are trying to add to make the entrance hole smaller will not adhere.  I don't know where they are getting their mud as it's bone dry here but what they are adding is damp - perhaps they add a whole lot of spit.


My inbox says there's a reply here from [member=24384]in the hills[/member]  but it has not come through to my screen 

we made a muddy puddle in the yard for the birds, well frequented.

[Fleecewife]

We did that for the swallows until it rained RtB, but our soil is so free draining that it was impossible to keep the soil wet, especially as we rely on stored rainwater and a well, with no mains, so not much water to spare. I assume the martins pop down to the stream which is a field away, or the burn which is about a mile away.  There seem to be 5 martins all around one nest - there is another nest box, but they are ignoring it.  They have knocked off most of the mud they added today, so we need to have another think of how to make mud stick!  Any ideas?

[Anke]

Our swallows have raised one brood this years successfully, but no second? We only had two nests this year (one in the goatshouse and one in the garden shed - which doubles as a nursery for the goat kids), and both had one brood each, they are still around, but not sleeping inside anymore and have made no attempts to raise a second batch. Don't know why...


Anyone else got similar experiences?

[mab]

mine have raised one so far; they arrived during the dry weather but didn't actually produce a brood for ages - i was beginning to think they weren't going to when suddenly the nest was occupied.


they're all flying now but i am wondering if they'll raise a 2nd brood as the 1st was so late.

[Fleecewife]

Similar here but then suddenly one of the nests started to sound cheepy again and the parent birds are feeding chicks. Another nest already has a second brood too.  The martins produced 3 or 4 chicks which fledged with great excitement and now I'm fairly sure the parents are sitting on more eggs.
It's in their best interests to be quite quiet when sitting so as not to attract predators, but then there's no disguising the sounds of a nest full of swallow or martin chicks!
I think we have 3 or 4 swallow nests this year which seems not too bad considering the weird weather and the late start.  There seem to be plenty of flies and the birds are often patrolling around the sheep, just a couple of feet above the ground, even in the rain.


Perhaps if yours are really not trying for a second brood then perhaps they don't feel they are in good enough condition to do so.