As I sat on the extreme western end of the loch, two scenes unfolded before me, one tranquil and the other hectic. In the former a female mute swan, the pen, was asleep on her huge nest, which was partially obscured by the remnants of last year’s reed bed. She would probably have been on her full clutch of eggs – five or six of them – and they are huge at 15mm x 74mm with very thick shells.
The male, the cob, was “in attendance” – her guardian – but asleep out on the open water. Then he was suddenly alert as something appeared out of a nearby sedge bed. A moorhen made its run across the water and took off with legs trailing. The swan went back to sleep.
Above the water, meanwhile, the air was alive with large numbers of hirundines – sand martins and swallows – as they hawked after insects. These were the first migrants of the year for me, which is always moving no matter what the species. Enjoying their aerobatics, I marvelled at their ability to fly all the way to Africa, across the Sahara, to overwinter – these birds weigh only about 10g, little more than a pound coin.
As I watched them wheeling and criss-crossing each other in flight it seemed that a collision was inevitable, but they are masters of their flight. I was reminded of Gilbert White, who wrote of them in 1789: “The hirundines are a most inoffensive, harmless, entertaining, social and useful tribe of birds.” When the moorhen pattered across the water, some of the hirundines looked as though they were going to dive bomb it, they were flitting so close. In fact they were after insects that had been disturbed from the water by the moorhen.
Just before I left, some of the swallows came close enough for me to see, by their long tail feathers, that they were all males. Does that mean that they arrive here before the females?
