The Migration -Swallows and House Martins.

The migration continues with the first sighting of House Martins (Delichon urbica) just a few birds, four only counted, looping and swooping but moving fast northward along the river (in spite of a strong to moderate North wind) about 100 feet above the water at 10:00 UTC.  They were soon out of sight, and having verified their identity I did not have time to do a full count.

Swallows have continued to be present in the mornings and afternoons but gone by evening, the 27th was particularly busy with a total of 130 birds mostly feeding over the river near the bridge at 08:00 UTC but  others, 30 or so,  sat it out in neat rows on the wires supporting the kayking gates. Swallows were heard in the afternoon but by 15:30 UTC there were none present.  The next evening, the 28th they were seen spiralling up in a thermal, sharing it with 6 Black Kites but did not seem to be going anywhere and were still present at dusk, possibly because from mid-day there were Northerly winds blowing into the front which had brought rain to Le Port and which was at that time still covering Southern France. The Metstat photos showed only anarrow corridor with a South Westerly airstream was available to help northward migration from here. 

This morning there were no Swallows seen at 09:00UTC. The moderate to strong north winds had extended across Le Port as well. Only odd Swallows were seen on the river, with four at Beynac, but later in the afternoon 15:00 UTC,  30 were counted at the Bridge on the wing and by dusk at 18:00 fifty birds were counted, apparently feeding in spite of the steep temperature drop after the sunset.

At some time Swallows will stop passing through on migration and form the summer breeding population here. It will be intersting to see if it is possible to work out when this happens and when the House Martin's and Swift's summer visitors arrive. After mid-May we can expect to see all three species feeding in the summer evenings, each species using a different altitude band over the river with the white wagtails doing their switchback flight through the flight paths of the Martins and Swallows which form the two lower bands. Pleasures to come...