On 28/8/07 23:14, in article
, "Sally Thompson"
wrote:

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:52:39 +0100, Sacha wrote
(in article ) :

We saw a couple of dozen sitting on the wires as we went out to dinner
tonight. ;-(



Still around he two nests in the (cartshed) garage, and two broods raised
in each this year. Mind you, our cars have to stand out in the summer so the
cats can't use them as a ladder :-)


'Ours', as in locally, seem to me to arrive late and leave early. They
never nest here but choose an area mere minutes away and among those is the
wall of my step daughter's house. But I know so little of their habits that
I could be in a real muddle as to their going or staying intentions. I just
feel that when we see them en masse, they're not going to be here a lot
longer. In a previous house, we had a cowshed with a dangling light flex.
The clever swallows built their nest on this and it was protected from all
predators, apparently. This went on for years. At my son's house, there is
a broad granite archway with oak beams across part of it. It's entirely
weatherproof and his grandfather set up a few of those fake nests. I've
known that house more than 30 years and those nests have never failed to be
inhabited and other swallows have built real ones beside them year upon
year. I really am going to have to find out a bit more about this. Every
year it both puzzles and intrigues me!

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'