[QUOTE=sid;8624348]
Yay! My scouts have typically arrived in the early evening. Maybe tonight. 
Time to start closing the big barn doors and door to the indoor to keep Barred Owls out. They don’t just go after them after they’ve nested, they go after perching adults. :([/QUOTE]
Yep…my scouts arrived last night. 
They’ve arrived!! I heard their unmistakable chatter this morning as I sipped my coffee in the barn. Yeah! First pair, 4 days earlier than last year…
they are back! swooping thru the barns and making themselves back at home in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia.
Not at my place and I’m in the Fraser Valley - (worried face).
But they are cutting hay down the road already. It will probably be made into marshmallows, but bodes well for a third cut. Unheard of for April 21st.
Usually farmers are ecstatic if they can cut before the May long weekend.
I was visiting my neighbours’ farm a couple of days ago and saw 2 scout swallows there, but they had not made it to our farm yet.
Today! they are HERE! not in the barn yet, but swooping over the pasture.
We have a lot of run-ins with nests in them, so I guess they are scoping those out first.
Oh Happy Day!
eta: I am in south central/west Ontario.
So far only a pair or so here too. They seem to be checking out all the old sites, passing through or residents - I can’t tell yet!
April 22 - my pink chestnut tree is budding out – the humming birds will be here any day. We are having an early Spring here, hope the hummers got the memo.
Swallows ? No signs yet.
I just looked at my Facebook posts from last spring and I posted May 11 that a pair was checking out my barn. They did stay and have a successful season so I hope this means they are just late arrivals and will return soon.
I FINALLY saw my first hummingbird today! I’m so excited! Swallows are steadily coming in (probably have 6-8 now, but expect many more), and first nest of phoebes hatched about a week ago - saw a couple bluebirds & a kingbird yesterday. Spring is here and all is well now on my little piece of the planet.
I’m in southern Indiana.
Thanks for the reminder. Time to put out the hummer feeder. Joyous.
They’re finally here! Just a week late.
Hummers were right on time on the fourteenth.
Finally saw two tonight when I fed the girls.
Yesterday morning before work I saw the first one swooping around after bugs.
After work it was sitting in a tree chirruping. And last night it was roosting in my barn.
FINALLY! It’s about a week later than usual for here, my first one almost always shows up on or right before tax day (April 15) every year.
Grinned all day and night yesterday to have the first one back! Although oddly this one is a female first, I usually get a solo male first. And within that week the rest of the boys show up and the week after that the females come in en masse.
I already stopped on the way home from work yesterday to grab a container of meal worms to put out. I put out shallow pans for them, in some I mix up some water and dirt for nest mud. In some there’s just clean water and in another I put out meal worms for snacks. They have the big scratching brush to grab horse hair from, I also put little clumps of fur and hair in cracks at the tops of the fence posts for them. (and other birds)
The single male house sparrow in my barn is going to be both thrilled and devastated at their return. The swallows chase the sparrows out of the barn every year but this one male sparrow thinks it’s a swallow…last year he tried like hell all season long to hold on to one abandoned swallow nest for himself and kept refurbishing it, but they’d keep chasing him out. He’d hunker way down in that nest and just wait out the aerial attacks and then try to sneak in and out to reline the nest.
Then he tried feeding the babies at each swallow nest all season despite getting his fat little butt kicked all the time.
He nests in his favorite nest all winter by himself. I feel bad for the poor guy even if sparrows are flying shit-machines.
He’s already been trying to woo the single swallow who showed up and not getting anywhere.
Another week or 2 should bring the hummingbirds.
And Gwen, the loudmouthed red shoulder hawk, is all twitter-pated and shrieking all day long, LOL! She has a BF this year that she can’t decide if she likes him or not. She’s either snuggling up to him or knocking him off of branches and out of the sky.
Mine came in yesterday.
So happy-just love them.
Mine came in yesterday.
So happy-just love them. Sussex NJ
I know it’s really corny, when the first scouts appear I look at them as they’re resting/roosting after a very long trip and tweet to them … “Welcome Home”!!!
I think they get it. Maybe not, but it makes me so happy to welcome them home. Such a swallow dork. lol!
[QUOTE=sid;8634288]
I know it’s really corny, when the first scouts appear I look at them as they’re resting/roosting after a very long trip and tweet to them … “Welcome Home”!!!
I think they get it. Maybe not, but it makes me so happy to welcome them home. Such a swallow dork. lol![/QUOTE]
It’s so reassuring to know there are other “swallow dorks” out there. I ALWAYS welcome them home with greetings of unbridled enthusiasm!
This has been a red-letter year: our first scout arrived on 27 March. This is the earliest I have ever seen a swallow here in 21 years of keeping records. Within 10 days there were 6 swallows, and now there are 7 pairs nesting in our stables.
The biggest threat to the nests are the ever-increasing number of jackdaws and other corvids. We’ve, actually, got a jackdaw problem on an almost Hitchcockian scale. Their predation of eggs and young is heartbreaking.
Yes, the corvids suck…and they’re so smart devising ways to eat those little hatchlings and even fledgies babies alive when you’re not in the barn. Very upsetting, but nature is sometimes upsetting.
Glad your flock is up. So fun.
April 25 - still no swallows.
But the pink flowering chestnut is in bloom properly now and - I KNEW it - the hummingbirds are back as well. Amazing - how do they know how to co-ordinate their timing.
Finally seeing the return of my beloved barn swallows in Groton MA! Although, they are really trying hard to convince me to stay out of my own barn.
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