There's no ecaping the sport today. It's granddaughter Olivia's school Sports Day and all good innocent fun. So no birding until tomorrow for me. In the meantime here's a few pictures of Swallows and House Martins from Pilling on Monday afternoon.
Not much to report from a quick visit. A build of post-breeding Lapwings at 60+, and similarly with Curlews at more than 40. Three Grey Plovers made an appearance over the shore where 7 Eider ducks sat out the incoming tide. The usual Kestrels now feeding quite large young and a Tawny Owl at Fluke Hall.
At Pilling Water I found a family of Swallows so spent a while with them. There were 2 adults and 4 recently fledged youngsters, the juveniles reluctant to explore while the adults kept returning with food.
Barn Swallow
Barn Swallow
Barn Swallow
Barn Swallow
Barn Swallow
House Martins do not often settle on the ground but have to do so when collecting material to construct their nests. The incoming tide left patches of muddy sand, an ideal buiding material for House Martins to shore up their mud dwellings. Everywhere is pretty dry at the moment with not many puddles around so the House Martins must have travelled a good 800 metres or more from their nests in Pilling village to collect the sticky stuff.
House Martins sometimes nest on ships. A pair once nested on board a ship travelling eight times a day between Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmo, Sweden. The crossing between the two ports was 15 miles long.
House Martin
House Martins
House Martin
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Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.
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12 comments:
Phil, your shots of the Swallows and Martins are wonderful.. They are both beautiful birds. Great post, happy birding.
Well, this post was not hard to swallow! I hope that your grand daughter did well at her event.
Nice to see some hirundines ... none in the air around us here!
Your House Martin is so much prettier than our Purple Martins. And the swallows....I love 'em.
Hope you and Olivia [and family] are having a super day for fun!!!
All handsome fellows!! Boom, Bobbi and Gary.
Cute birds! There's no escaping the football games in our house. I have a player and a player/coach who are commenting and analyzing every game.
PS...Phil, I don't ask the questions for hodgepodge...it's a meme hosted by Joyce and the link is under the HODGEPODGE section of my blog post.
And the heat index [if you know what I mean] and boiling a certain anatomy...I don't know if it's a "Texas" thing or not...Bud is Navy and he has said it all too often.
Terrific captures. The swallows are so cute and the martin has gorgeous colours!
wow! the house martins are handsome!
beautiful birds to watch although I have not seen many House Martins this year.
I know how it goes. Lots of life things get in the way, but you've got some great birds here today. Hope you have fun at the sports event. I should be cleaning my house, but instead I'm watching my bird feeders and reading blogs. Hope she does well and thanks for sharing the Swallow photos. All my best. Chris
Excellent photos, so hard to get these little birds to site still long enough for a photo :)
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