O Changing Swallow..

"The young Hirundines begin to congregate on the tower. How punctual are these birds in all their proceedings!" Gilbert White, July 31, 1792

I took a walk along the Thames earlier in the week: many martins were nesting under the balconies and eaves of riverside flats, but I didn't spot any swallows. Listener Richard Kirby (also known as the Plankton Pundit, but more on that later) also noticed that the swallows seemed to be late for their annual appointment with the UK:

Where have all the swallows gone ? Last year there seemed fewer and this year there seem less again, at least to me living in S. Devon. But perhaps I am wrong.

Not wrong Richard. The RSPB says there are fewer than in the previous two years as they explain below:

Have you seen a swallow this year? Or are your summer visitors delayed? Let us know.

The blog post title is, for those that care about such things, from Swinburne's Itylus which by an odd coincidence I first read in a collection of English verse lurking in the discount bin of a Danish bookshop, in a small town crowded with nesting swallows

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