After a miracle journey, swallows deserve a home
THE second leg of a journey through Sub-saharan Africa took me this week to Senegal and specifically the sweltering city of Saint Louis, not far from the Mauritania border. Here, on the banks of the Senegal River, I watched swallows in full, joyous flight, feasting upon insects as they hatched.
No doubt some of these birds will be fattening themselves up for the imminent journey to Europe.
Typically, swallows spend the winter in Africa, before beginning to arrive on our shores between April and May – bringing the first glimpse of summer flashing in their wake.
Migrating swallows can cover some 200 miles a day, flying at average speeds of 17-22 mph. The top speed recorded by a swallow is 35mph.
If the distance between Senegal and Britain is roughly 2,500 miles, then with a fair wind they might complete the journey in less than a fortnight.
But what welcome awaits them on these shores?
When I touched down in Britain myself yesterday morning, it was to read news of a Tesco supermarket in Norwich which has installed netting to stop swallows nesting in the roof of its trolley station, where the birds reared their young last year.
There have been several such examples of netting at bird nesting sites elsewhere in the country in recent weeks.
Tesco limply claims this decision was taken “following the advice of experts” to prevent bird droppings on trolleys and insists it has left other spaces available for swallows to nest.
Already swallows – like so many of our migrating birds which herald the arrival of warmer weather in Britain – are in steep decline. Habitat loss, climate change and the decline of the insects upon which they rely are all wreaking havoc. Indeed, so stacked are the odds against them during the perilous cross-continent journey that it is a small miracle the birds ever arrive here in the first place.
The least we can do is permit them, for a few months, the quiet corner of some trolley park roof.