The swallows: Uninvited, filthy, but welcome visitors

My summer visitors have left. Thank God. I don’t mind them coming to stay, but they do leave a shocking mess behind. Their toilet training has never been the best, and they don’t care where they drop it.
I’m talking of course about my feathered friends, the swallows. They just come and take over. And what can I say? They have travelled so far, I can’t just tell them to sling their hook, they’re not welcome. They travel from South Africa, a distance of some 9,500 kilometres, God bless them. Just think of that journey, and the physical effort of it. They’re not depending on Ryanair.
Their arrival heralds the start of summer, and they usually land around April. Most of the time, they return to nests they had been in the year before. The swallow is a good looking bird, turned out splendid as in a dress suit. They are blue-black above, creamy below with rusty coloured patches on the head. Spending most of their time on the wing feeding, they are easily recognised in flight with their swift and lively movement, pointed wings and a deeply forked tail. Apparently, they cover 300 kilometres a day on their journey here.
But such messers! At my house, they have two nests. Both are built of of mud and bits under the eaves of the roof, at the back, feats of engineering in their own right, which always seem to just appear! They had one in the garage a few years ago, but have deserted it for some reason, and they rebuilt one which fell off the wall a few years back.  I wouldn’t mind so much if one of the nests wasn’t directly over my back door. Because they are dirty devils. Don't care where they do their poo-poos. The nest is almost directly over the door handles and a small window sill beside it. Which means the sill and the doorstep get the brunt of the bird poo when they stick their little bums out of the nest and just let shoot. It's worse when the eggs hatch, and all the wee ones start firing on all cylinders too. There seems to be two hatching periods over a summer. So every weekend, a scrubbing operation has to take place. 
I will admit to enjoying their birdsong over the bedroom window when I wake up on a summer morning.
Over at my father's place, the swallows have completely taken over the run of an old cow byre, previously a horse stable. They have been visiting it for decades, but now that there's no four legged  beasts in it, they have moved in lock, stock and barrel. And do they fertilise it?!  The Heritage Council refused us a grant under the traditional farm building scheme to restore the roof a few years ago because it wasn't in everyday use – we forgot to tell them the very important role it plays in the breeding of a new community of swallows each year.
The swallows do provide great entertainment swooping down to antagonise the new young dog, who does his best to jump up and catch them. They used to try this with the tom cat, but he's be too cute to try catching them in the air. He waits and catches them unawares in the rafters.
Their departure is signalled by a few days of swooping and gathering on the electricity wires. Our Dunshaughlin neighbour, David Murnane, a frequent letter writer to the Irish Times, was published there on 5th September, saying: “Sir, – The swallows that have nested in my outbuildings for many years have left at least three weeks earlier than they ever have before. I wonder is that a forecast of a bad winter?”
The appropriately named Niall Hatch of Birdwatch Ireland said in 2014 that fewer swallows are returning to Ireland to nest each spring after their journey from wintering grounds in Johannesburg.
They are nowhere near the numbers they used to be years ago, he said. Their arrival date seems to be getting earlier, which would point to climate change having an effect on migration, and the survival of the chicks seems to be lower. The Sahara desert is getting wider each year and more arid, and fewer can survive the crossing.
There is nowhere for them to rest or drink or feed. They have to get across in one go and fewer are making it each time, and there are also lots of human hunters in Egypt, Malta, and Cyprus catching the birds in big numbers. Mr Hatch said wet Irish summers also mean the birds have fewer flies to feed on before they leave.
Despite the mess they leave behind them, it would be sad to see a continued decline in that great adventure which the swallows' journey to and from South Africa has to be.

 

(First published Meath Chronicle, Inspire Magazine, September 2017)