Here in the south-west Dordogne, France, the swallows have been massing together on the power lines, I estimate about 50 on the lines with many more in the air, over-flying the fields to catch insects for their final feed before flying south.
Roy B, Semper Sersum
Wow, sounds late for swallows. Ours here 2 hours east of Lyon left a while ago. They had a good summer though. Who knows, maybe they made their way west to you before continuing south. Read my post to Hello about starlings in this area.
Regards Papillon
Quote from my Gran from when we were irritating youngsters: "If you can't help, don't hinder". Good advice indeed.
I thought it was getting late as well. At first I thought they were housemartins, which are more common in our village, but the binos showed them to be swallows. They have been around for the last 3 days, still some today.
Still a few knocking around here, a few house martins and one sand Martin and swallow today
Still odd ones and twos at Leighton Moss today.
My gallery here
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Still getting flocks of 30+ passing over during the day today but seem to have missed the lining up on the wires so maybe our "local" birds have already moved on.
Pete
Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can
Similar situation round here today, guess autumn is with us, though it is still mild here- ie over 20°C
Been a steady stream of swallows over the north downs in surrey over the last week. Small flocks, up to 30 to 40 birds at a time. Heard a chiffchaff on Saturday though, so still at least one summer visitor here!
I wonder how long it takes them to get from north to south in Britain?
The second of the pair nesting in our club roof left about the end of Sept. Not far to the Channel from the Thames.
:-)
Seriously thinking about trying harder!
They have more or less all gone from here, just an occassional straggler. Am now waiting for the cranes to fly over on their return migration south.