Swallow was so close, yet so far

Damien Enright on late hatchlings that can’t make migration.

A FARMER tells me he saw a swallow flying over his yard near Durrus on November 1, hoovering up flies. We wondered what it could be doing, hanging around so long after the rest of its tribe had left.

We concluded that it may have been a very late hatchling from a second brood that had somehow survived after its parents had flown. He confirmed that the swallows in his barn had raised two broods this summer.