Recently Chap and I were at the Dorchester Curiosity Centre, a favourite spot for rootling about among antiques and bric a brac, looking for treasures. It’s on an old industrial estate in a series of interlinking hangar-like rooms. One of the areas has high sliding doors to the outside and is used for furniture storage rather than display—and what drew us in there was the twittering of swallows. As we were admiring them as they flew in and out through the open doors, the owner (?) of the centre came by and chatted with us about how they come every year and nest in the eaves and holes in the gable end of the wall, and how he had hung up some protective sheets overhead to keep the droppings from landing on the furniture (and punters). He mentioned that some customers had said he should shoo them away and prevent them from nesting.  We were so glad he chose to ignore those people—swallows are such a delight and their nesting spots are increasingly under threat. And they will certainly draw us back there!

Swallows (image from The Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland, by Richard Crossley).

Our village church has a Swallow Mess Committee (I don’t think they call themselves that …) as swallows nest every year in the porch. The members of the SMC duly clear up after them. I think they might even have a rota for oomska duty.

Swallow chicks in their nest (and oomska). Photo by User:Wsiegmund on Wikimedia.

Another church I know has an umbrella hanging upside-down below the nest in the porch to catch the mess. We are so grateful that people go to this kind of trouble for our feathered friends: an English summer wouldn’t be the same without them.  Chap and I keep a nature diary and every year we note the date of various spring ‘firsts’—first brimstone, first bat, first clump of frogspawn in our pond, first hedgehog poo on the lawn—but the first swallow is the one that means the most.

One of my favourite mugs, by Emma Bridgwater (Photo off eBay)

One of my favourite mugs is a swallow one by Emma Bridgwater. I was going to link to it in her shop but it looks like the company doesn’t make that design any more. I shall have to be doubly careful of mine, in that case. And of our great bustard one: that’s a special one and I’ll squeeze a blog post out of it at some point …