Swallows

All members of Cabragh Wetlands Trust are reminded that the AGM will take place at the Wetlands Centre this coming Tuesday, May 4th, starting promptly at 8.00pm. As always, this is a very important time for communication between the Committee and the membership, and as a local community-based organization, the Trust welcomes the chance to update members on the plans to renovate the Centre and the ever-growing education programme, as well as our core work of conservation of habitat and bio-diversity.



With spring well on the way, the rain over the weekend was very welcome, easing the task of digging the vegetable patch and watering the new crops. Gardeners at the newly inaugurated Cabragh organic allotments have been out in force preparing the ground for their first growing season. The sight of swallows arriving has certainly gladdened the hearts of many of us – is there a more graceful sight in nature than the gliding-swooping flight of the swallow? One almost feels that telegraph wires were made for them to sit and survey the world beneath.



After wintering in southern Africa, the swallows have flown 6,000 miles or more to return to their breeding grounds. Most adults will go to the same locality year after year, so you really are welcoming back old friends. They tend to build their nests on ledges on top of walls or against roof beams, and may well use exactly the same nest for many years, upgrading it with fresh mud and straw so that it is secured with architectural precision. Ornithologists conclude that swallows were originally cave nesters, and began to move to man-made structures when human construction began in the Tigris-Euphrates valleys some 10,000 years ago. They love to nest under bridges, recreating their ancestral caving instinct, and nests have been found several metres underground in old mine shafts. Last week Kevin Collins showed us a remarkable picture of a swallow’s nest at his house that contained 17 tiny wrens, crammed into it for shelter on one of the coldest nights of the recent freezing winter.



Swallows play a major role in keeping insect populations under control, catching them in flight. Often they live around busy farms and are known to follow farm machinery, no doubt because the activity will disturb insects like aphids, flies and bluebottles, driving them into the air for the swallows to seize. Their natural habitat is that invisible space hanging over the earth up to about 500 feet in height; as they fly lower than house martins and swifts, swallows are more susceptible to pollution and pesticides and are consequently declining in numbers compared to their close cousins. They will often drink on the wing, gliding open-beaked over a pond and swooping low to scoop up a mouthful of refreshment. In late summer and autumn places like Cabragh Wetlands provide reedbed roosts where hundreds of swallows may gather before migrating in mid-September.



The good news is that Ireland’s population of swallows is holding up better than most, largely because of the relatively low use of pesticides and the preservation of a lot of ruined buildings. One man’s ruin is someone else’s niche habitat.