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Do All Swallows Migrate? (1 Viewer)

AlanTh

AlanTh

Well-known member
Coventry UK

At about 3pm this afternoon a group of about eight birds few past my window (about 100 yards away). If they weren't swallows, then I am baffled as to what they were. They looked for all the world like swallows.

The light was fading and the split second sighting (I saw them twice) was against a very light grey sky. So just profile type views really.

Any ideas what they might have been.
 
Thanks for the reply Robin. I had assumed that either the birds weren't swallows, or were swallows that had decided to stay here.

I have lots to learn .....
 
Seems to be two different questions here!

1:
AlanTh said:
Do All Swallows Migrate?
Click to expand...
No, not all do; several tropical swallow species are non-migratory.

2:
AlanTh said:
Coventry UK

At about 3pm this afternoon a group of about eight birds few past my window (about 100 yards away). If they weren't swallows, then I am baffled as to what they were. They looked for all the world like swallows.

The light was fading and the split second sighting (I saw them twice) was against a very light grey sky. So just profile type views really.

Any ideas what they might have been.
Click to expand...
In theory, it could be late Barn Swallows, or late House Martins, but - to be honest - your local County Records Committee is going to want some quite detailed identification notes on these to establish their identity, this late in the year in that area. One or two birds seen well feeding on flies above the beach at a sheltered south coast site one thing, but a flock of 8 flying past buildings at dusk in a Midlands city is another entirely; the location and habitat is out of character, as is the number out of reasonable likelihood. Some other birds can look surprisingly swallow-like in poor light; my personal guess would be a group of Starlings coming in to roost.
 
My latest swallow in Northumberland was one on 1st December 2000. I was going into Cresswell hide on my lunch-break from work when it went south overhead. Later that day I saw it was reported at around the same time at Druridge Bay Country Park, a couple of miles to the north.

The weather at the time was mild for the time of year, with a strong south-west wind, following several days of a strong south to south-westerly air-flow.

It was the first I'd seen in the county for two months. My guess was that it hadn't been hanging around out of sight eating caterpillars, berries and worms, but that it had left and had come back (or alternatively it was from elsewhere and had just drifted back north) with the mild air, along with something for it to eat on the wing. No food, no swallows.

We're having a mild spell with southerly air-flows at present, but as Nutcracker says, there's a vast difference between a single straggler and a flock outside of migration time.
 
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Thanks again for the replies. All very interesting.

For the birds to be swallows would be unlikely/wrong - that's why I asked the question (s).

If they were starlings, I would expect to see them again.
 
There were two birds a few years ago at Lossiemouth in December! Pretty far north for winter. I think a few now go no further than the Southern Med and they even breed in Spain in February/March..... which seems to account for records of juvenile birds being reported arriving here with the main influx in April.
 
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Swallows have been known to overwinter along the coasts of milder parts of Britain. Given the recent mild weather quite a few birds are lingering but it is unlikely that a group of eight would still be around.

CB
 
I think it likely that a few young barn swallows just don't yet the urge to migrate. If they get lucky with the weather and location (the Sussex sewage works bird of last winter for example) then they might survive through until spring.

More likely they die of starvation and that particular urge to stay put stays out of the main gene pool. There are probably plenty of fledgling birds of all species that do not head south and end up starving...
 
Whilst Swallows this late in the year are not too unusual, a group of eight would be far more so. Whilst some species of swallow may not migrate, the context of this post makes it clear that 'Barn' Swallows were the species the poster had in mind. Just because we're used to seeing Swallows here in the UK in the summer, it doesn't mean birds seen at such an unseasonal time of the year 'haven't migrated'. I think it very likely that birds seen so late aren't 'local' birds and will have come from elsewhere - possibly quite some distance and seeing them in November merely indicates a delay. The situation in southern Europe isn't perhaps quite so clear. 'Barn' Swallows are 'resident' in SW Spain and they've been known to breed in the winter months - although I don't know whether birds that breed at such times necessarily stay around through the summer. Other races of 'Barn' Swallow are indeed rersident in their range.
 
Quite surprised that no-one has mentioned the fact that until recently swallows didn't migrate at all, but instead spent the winter hibernating in the mud at the bottom of ponds and lakes ...






;)
 
House Martin at Whitburn, Co. Durham, today. But only one, and feeding above seaweed on the beach (a very rich source of flies late in the autumn).
 
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