France in Focus

Our phone lines this morning are full of young shallows, a month earlier than last year.
As we have none nesting near us ( see none flying around) they must be starting to migrate or coming south to escape the storms and high winds up north.

There are lots flying around here too. They haven't nested in our barn for a few years though. ( Not that I've seen, anyway.)

Since we had all our overhead power cables removed we don't see as many presumably as they have no where to rest; Maximum number seen at one time - 6

Interesting ... we haven't seen or heard the swifts for 2 or 3 weeks but I did see swallows yesterday.
However, I noted that there were loads of swallows on the phone lines about the same time that the swifts seemed to disappear. Perhaps they were preparing to leave ? We've been trying to encourage them to live in our barn and though they've shown interest, I'm not sure that they've built anything. I can't see whether there's anything in the gap between the high ceiling and the roof ....

We had swallows in the barn this year (as we usually do) but these managed to get five young to the "fly the nest" stage. In 52 it is all swallows but in Autun it is almost all swifts who concentrate in, or rather above, the historic quarter around the cathedral.