On watch for swallows set to return for spring

I’M on watch. Some time in the next two to three weeks, the swallows will return and start hawking for spring midges over the 10-acre field beside the house, writes Dick Warner.

This is important because it’s the definitive and acknowledged sign that spring is here.

What will actually happen is that the sandmartins will arrive first. They have a shorter migration. They over-winter in central Africa, while almost all Irish swallows have to fly from Natal Province in South Africa. We don’t have housemartins around here so I’m not sure when they arrive. The sandmartins have a nesting colony in a disused quarry about 800m away.