Spring has, ah, sprung: Welcome Swallows
Okay, so back in the day, I’d go somewhere, see something and come home and nine times out of ten, post about it, on the actual day that it happened. It was easier for one and I was usually buzzing from the encounter anyway and by posting straight away I’d be able to capture the day, the event and the wildlife without the next day and the one after that all blurring together in some big wildlife-based fever dream. Now that I’ve moved to the blog and I’ve tried to include more videos and information, it takes longer and well let’s just say I’m VERY easily distracted 😂 And so the Welcome Swallows I saw beginning to build their nest during the early morning clinging heat of last Friday are being posted now on a particularly freezing, blustery and wet Tuesday evening.
The plan was to wax lyrical, or as lyrical as I can get about the coming of Spring and how everything just feels better as the days warm up, the nights are clear and still and you can literally seeing nature springing back to life right in front of your eyes. But I’m not feeling that vibe today. It is icy cold. ICY. I snuck in a quick walk this morning along the beach with my umbrella, which incidentally spent most of its time turned inside out and dragging me along the path! Bad for the image but good for the abs 😉
I’ve got to say Spring is my favourite season; not too hot, not too cold and last week I was really feeling like the new season was just around the corner. I had even started my nightly wanders again, turning over leaves and shining torches up into the canopy of gums, the clicking of crickets creating a familiar hum. Instead of the umbrella, my walk last week saw me in my sunnies and even then I had to shield my eyes. And out of nowhere two very flighty Welcome Swallows flew in and up and under a nearby awning. I watched as they did this a few times and finally I was able to track their destination at the other end of their journey: a small patch of wet, sandy soil underneath one of the showers at the beach and that only meant one thing – nesting time!
Both the male and female gathered up mouthfuls of the mud and grabbed for small blades of grass before flying back to underneath the awning. Now normally I would stay for as long as I could stand, watching this process from a distance, the gathering of materials and the gentle building of the cup nest but this isn’t any normal time. We’re still in lockdown, the Delta strain seems pretty much everywhere and so I needed to be mindful and spent around an hour, out of the way of everyone, masked up, head kind of spinning as to how weird it is that our lives are so unpredictable right now, while the Welcome Swallows continue as normal!
The nesting period for Welcome Swallows is actually really speedy, so much so that they often have two broods a season, with between 2-5 eggs each time. From laying to hatching it’s about 2 or 3 weeks and about another 3 for the nestlings to fledge. Before I left, I watched one of the birds bring in several soft, white, downy feathers to be used to pad the nest itself. Architecture and interior design, these birds can do it all!
Hopefully over the next few weeks I’ll be able to report some happy news and if not, well let’s never speak of this again!
Welcome Swallows – Northern Illawarra
