Wednesday 21 May 2014

Summers harbingers

I have seen the first swallows swooping through the skies...always a moment of joy..it seems to be summer!

Unfortunately there is a downside to their arrival. All church doors are now guarded!

In one small inland church the door was always left open. The church warden did not mind the arrival of the yearly visit. Plastic sheets were placed over the altar and every service was attended by the birds swooping up and down the church!

In one church I arrived to marry a local couple to find the pews, the tiled sanctuary and the altar covered in white droppings. A troop of ladies complete with mops arrived to do a thorough clean. One of them cheerfully mopping said

"If you tell my husband I can mop I might have to kill you!"

The bride arrived to a clean church!

Now the doors are firmly closed. Notices are placed outside asking visitors to keep the doors shut.

One church porch becomes a nursery for baby swallows..we have all learned to dodge the mess and no one would dream of trying to move them on.

Outside, high in the sky their swoops and dives give intense joy to me and everyone else...it is the yearly signal that joy of joys.....summer is here.

When I lived in Essex the other harbinger of summer was the arrival of the cuckoo. One of my friends threatened to get a catapult to silence their repeated cry!

I've never heard a cuckoo here in Cornwall but the swallows are proclaiming the good news.....alleluia.

3 comments:

Elsie T said...

I've kept a record of the first sightings for many years and our first ones arrived about a month ago. Several around now & busy nest building.
Yours must have been on a slower boat!!

UKViewer said...

They're delightful birds. Our harbinger of summer is the arrival of the Crows, who've been cawing for the past few weeks of nest building in the tree's of the park behind our house. And, they've been busy nicking the food that we put out for our outside cats - bit of a stand off as generally, the crows are bigger than the cats who face them down. We're dreading the day that one of the cats tries to drag a Crow through the cat flap :(

Revjeanrolt said...

I thought I saw some earlier but not being sure decided it was wishful thinking!