Backyard Zoology: Welcome Swallows
If the longer, sunnier, warmer days hadn’t already tipped you off that Spring has indeed sprung, then the wildlife will. Let’s just say things are getting rowdy around here! The grunting and hissing of the local male brushtail possums has been...
If the longer, sunnier, warmer days hadn’t already tipped you off that Spring has indeed sprung, then the wildlife will. Let’s just say things are getting rowdy around here! The grunting and hissing of the local male brushtail possums has been waking me up at all hours, followed by their heavy-footed dash after one another across our tin roof. There’s also that familiar ‘zoo smell’ of possum around our garden as possum after possum attempts to mark their territory in the most, ahem, fragrant way possible.
I got a message this morning from my neighbour pointing out that the local kookaburras were having lovers’ tiffs in her backyard and I’ve been watching as the whole family group have been cackling away as they fling themselves, beak first, towards a small hollow in one of the large gums across the road. Whoever is currently residing inside should consider themselves about to be evicted!
And probably the loveliest signs of the changing of the season were the welcome swallows I found during my morning beach walk. I watched as two of them flew up and under an awning in a flurry of wings and twittering, only to emerge a minute or two later. Welcome swallows themselves always remind me of warmer weather anyway, as they migrate down from warmer parts where they have spent the winter, but it didn’t take me long to see that these two were most definitely on a mission.
August right through to around March is their breeding season and I followed their path from under the awning, circling quickly and twisting and turning mid-air, grabbing small insects along the way, to the muddy surrounds of one of the beach showers. Once on the ground they gathered beaks full of sand and mud and bits of grass that they plucked directly from the earth before flying back and up and carefully started to build their mud cup nest. One of the parents-to-be occasionally flew in carrying dainty white feathers to be used to cushion the nest itself.
The welcome swallows lay between two to five eggs with the female doing the nest sitting.
Once they hatch, around three weeks later, the male resumes his role as co-parent, helping to feed the young who only stay in the nest for approximately another three weeks before fledging, leaving the parents with time to raise two broods during the season.
And so, I think it’s really lovely with everything going on in the world, to know that some things don’t change; that the kookaburras will still argue, the brushies will still raise hell and the welcome swallows will still build their nests and raise their young. Here’s to sitting back and enjoying the show.
