Two people separately asked me, in the last few days, if the small birds flying around above the village in good numbers were swallows or swifts. In fact, they were nearly all house martins, perhaps including the ones that had been nesting under our eaves until recently as well as their young that had fledged at the beginning of August.

There were a few swallows among the house martins and I did spot a lone swift. Swifts have usually left on migration by early August, the last of the three species to arrive from their winter quarters in Africa and the first to leave.

RP