The house martins left and never said goodbye

I think we have had the best year for housemartins for decades in our part of North Shropshire ,has any body else noticed increasing numbers? I love their skillfull flying displays and their cheeky chatter and will miss them for the next 7 months
Yet, less than thirty miles away both House Martins and Swallows have been very scarce this Summer. At least you had some, to not say " goodbye"!
 

Frank-the-Wool

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
We started with very poor numbers but many arrived late and only had one hatch. The last ones have just fledged, so hopefully the weather will stay kind for them to get strong enough to make the long journey.
Insects numbers in the drought here are very low though.
 

PSQ

Member
Arable Farmer
Took a picture last Sunday of the last of the swallows getting ‘ready for the off’ (to use as a computer background when the days get miserably short). Also recorded the sound of the house-martins sitting on the pole (out of shot), sounded like they were having a ‘domestic’ over the route south... ?
832752
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
35 or so Swallows departed sometime on Weds. / Thursday. its been an average to good year for them breeding here , despite only 3 or 4 or so pairs arriving in April.

What is interesting is that There are actually half a dozen or so still here, as one clutch / nest full that only fledged a few days ago, very late , the latest ones I can ever remember ..they didn't hatch until well into September....
They are going to have to mature bloomin quickly this coming week if they are to have any chance to survive the journey South , with weather being set unusually warm and hopefully a few more flies hanging around for awhile ….. so fingers crossed....hope it doesn't get to stormy in the next few weeks from here to Africa or where ever they go....
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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