And it’s goodbye to my swallows.

Posted on September 6, 2010 by wildlifegardening

It’s always very sad when our swallows leave, but at the same time there is a sense of (quite undeserved) achievement – two arrived here back in April and made their home in the usual place in my porch for five months, but a total of ten are heading off across the Sahara to their winter/summer home in South Africa. Part of me wishes I was going with them to some warmer weather! Time to clean the porch and the nest to get rid of parasites which can deter them from using it again next spring. And as autumn approaches I am picking apples and pears while making sure some fruit is left for the blackbirds at the moment and I’m filling up the bird feeders on a daily basis. Its not just me preparing for cooler weather – my garden wildlife is too.

About wildlifegardening

Jenny Steel was a Plant Ecologist at Oxford University before becoming a writer. She has more than 20 years experience of writing about and teaching ecology, natural history and wildlife gardening. She is also a photographer, journalist and former plant nursery owner, and a lecturer and tutor in adult education. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television programmes including Gardener’s World with Alan Titchmarsh, and she presented a series of items on the BBC 2 gardening show, How Does Your Garden Grow. She has worked with and written for a variety of organisations including the Royal Horticultural Society, Natural England, Atropos, Ernest Charles, the Adult Residential Colleges Association (ARCA), Haiths, Usborne Books, Complete Gardens, Oxfordshire County Council, the charity Growing Native and several of the Wildlife Trusts. She is also the Garden Bird Guru for the wild bird food company JustAddBirds of which she was a co-founder. The Emmy Award winning film company Panache Productions are currently making a film about her wildlife garden in South Shropshire. She has written 10 books on wildlife gardening. Her website can be found at www.wildlife-gardening.co.uk and her bird food company at www.JustAddBirds.co.uk

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1 Response to And it’s goodbye to my swallows.

justaddbirds says:

September 6, 2010 at 4:15 pm

It’s hard to believe that these Swallows will spend summer with us but will be catching flies attracted to elephants and giraffes five thousand miles away by October!

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