In fact, by the time you read this we are already heading into late spring - if not early summer, and the changes to the natural world have been with us for some time - not least the arrival of our summer migrants back from their winter homes in Africa.
For many of us, the most obvious reminder of the changing seasons is the arrival back in their summer homes of the swallows, house martins and swifts that grace the summer skies over the villages.
Whilst superficially similar in shape these birds are quite different in many ways - in fact swifts are not even members of the same family as swallows and martins.
Swifts are in fact the most aerial of all birds. They spent their lives in the air - the only exception is when the female incubates the eggs - and they do indeed sleep on the wing. It is estimated that swifts travel on average 500 miles a day - London based swifts have been recorded feeding over the Wash - making for a life time journey of over a million miles! A young swift will spend the first 2-3 years of its life in constant flight before breeding.
They nest in nooks and crannies in the roofs of houses - invariably houses built before 1944, modern ones offering no cracks and holes! And they gather in small groups in late summer, screaming over the roof-tops in one of the most evocative sounds of the natural world. Perhaps it is this eerie screaming that gave the swift its old name of ‘devil bird’.
Whilst swifts are uniformly dark brown, swallows are a medley of blue, white and red and have long external tail feathers creating the impression of a deeply forked tail.
Unlike swifts they nest inside buildings such as sheds or barns and it is true that birds return year after year to the place of their birth. And they are not nearly so aerial as the swift - in fact, you do wonder just where they sat before telephone wires were erected!
House martins are more obviously twin-tone than swallows, looking basically black and white, although in fact their upper-side is more of a bluey-black. They nest on the outside of houses, collecting small mouthfuls of mud from nearby ponds that they stick together to create their characteristic nests. It takes about 10 days to construct the nest and about 1,000 mouthfuls of mud. Martins don’t seem to mind whether the houses they nest on are new or old. The buildings on Temple’s Court and Crossberry Way in the centre of Helpston hold a thriving colony of nests - where did these birds nest before these homes were built about ten years ago?
Even more mysteriously, we still don’t know where house martins spend the winter! 90 million birds leave Europe each year and return to Africa, but amazingly we have no idea exactly whereabouts they go. Only one ringed bird has ever been found south of the Sahara - it seems hard to believe that 90 million birds can just go missing each year!
The sand martin completes the group of aerial summer visitors. Basically a brown and white bird, they are less often seen over the villages but are very common along the Maxey Cut and over Bainton Pits, making their nesting tunnels in the soft banks exposed by Tarmac’s quarrying work. They tunnel up to 2-3 foot into the bank, making progress at 3-4 inches a day!
If you are interested in nature, then do join the Trust on one of our walks or visit one of our nature reserves. You can find out more about the Trust at; www.langdyke.org.uk
Richard Astle
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