Where Did All The Swallows Go?

For the past two evenings there had been at least a thousand Swallows coming in to roost in the reeds at the Nature Park, so Ian and I decided that last night we would have a go at catching and ringing some. The weather had been good all day yesterday and usually this helps to build the roost up, but not tonight! We put 120 feet of netting up in a good spot and on went the Swallow MP3. We retreated to the ringing table with high expectations but it was soon clear that it wasn't going to happen.

Swallow

The Swallows were very late coming in and in the end I only counted around 150 flying in to roost. This of course meant that we caught very few and we only ringed 8, with four of these being adults. In addition to the Swallows we ringed three Reed Warblers. A male and female Sparrowhawk came in towards dusk to 'work' both the Swallow and Starling roost. Several thousand Starlings were roosting, but thankfully they stayed well away from our nets!

 Reed Warbler

A Little Egret was a nice distraction whilst waiting for the Swallows and 4 House Martins and a single Sand Martin fed over the pools. We will leave it a few days before checking the roost out again prior to another ringing attempt.