It breeds throughout the Northern Hemisphere including every European country except Iceland. In Norway and Finland swallows nest well north of the Arctic Circle. European swallows mostly winter in Africa south of the Sahara. Curiously, populations from the British Isles and northern Europe winter farther south than those from central and southern Europe, flying all the way to Botswana and South Africa.
A few swallows regularly spend the winter in southern Spain. Swallows like to nest in open-fronted buildings such as barns, stables and cowsheds.
It takes a pair of swallows up to 1, journeys to build a nest. Only the female lines the nest. Swallows like to nest close to large domestic animals like cattle or horses. The decline in dairy farming in the UK and the resulting increase in arable farming has not suited the species. Most British swallows try to rear two broods each summer and some succeed in raising three. Red-rumped swallows are spreading steadily north from the Mediterranean and small numbers of over shooting birds occur here every spring.
Swallows were likely to have been much rarer before man started practising agriculture and animal husbandry. While Mediterranean swallows often fledge their first broods in April, birds that breed in northern Scandinavia seldom arrive before the third week of May. The male swallow invariably arrives back first from migration, singing over his territory in the hope of attracting a mate. Females generally appear a week to a fortnight later. Male and female swallows are virtually identical in appearance.
They will readily adopt artificial nests that resemble their own mud-built constructions. Much folklore surrounds the swallow. To see the first swallow of the year is regarded as a good omen. In Russia songs were written to celebrate their return after the long, cold winter. Before the mysteries of migration were understood, it was thought that swallows spent the winter buried in the mud of ponds and lakes.
In their wintering areas swallows feed in small flocks, which join together to form roosting flocks of thousands of birds. Martin Harper Blog. How nature can help protect our homes Following the floods this winter, watch how one area is using nature as a natural protector.
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Get out, get busy and get wild! Fun factoids for all the family Find out more about the nature and wildlife outside your window. The journey swallows make European swallows spend the winter in Africa south of the Sahara, in Arabia and in the Indian sub-continent. As soon as they can, they begin courtship and breeding. They build a loosely made nest from grass lined with mud, often on a high beam. Here, the female lays her clutch of smooth and glossy eggs — between three to eight of them — which are coloured white with reddish speckling.
For the next two weeks or more, the female incubates the eggs while the male collects tiny insects to feed her all day long. The chicks are born after days and are naked apart from a thin coat of down and blind. They are also hungry. From now on, both the parents spend every daylight hour going back and forth to the nest to feed their ever-growing brood.
After 10 days or so, the nest is beginning to get a bit cramped; by day 20 it is positively overcrowded. Finally, though, encouraged by calling from both adults, they leap into the unknown — literally, as this is their first experience of flight. Having experienced this unfamiliar mode of transport, they land awkwardly on a barn beam, roof or telegraph wire, where they pose unsteadily before mum or dad arrives with some welcome food.
But they must soon learn to fend for themselves, for swallows usually have two — and in good summers, three — broods, so the parents will soon have a new family to feed.
Young swallows are most vulnerable in these first few days away from the nest. Hobbies — acrobatic falcons that look like a giant swift — patrol the airspace above, diving down to pursue a potential victim. They may in turn be chased off by the adults, whose gentle twittering turns into a frantic alarm call when any predator is around.
But if the youngsters do manage to survive, then sometime towards the end of August or the beginning of September, they gather with the adults in groups on wires, like musical notes on a stave. For the next few weeks there may be several false starts: they will fly high into the air, then return back to their perch a few minutes later. One day from the middle of September onwards, swallows will head off for good.
Their epic journey takes them south over the Channel, across Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, the Sahara Desert and the jungles of equatorial Africa, until Table Mountain comes into view, signalling that they have at last reached their destination.
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