Hirundo rustica
A common summer visitor.
We used to greet the Swallows on 10th April, as an average date, at Stone Hall, where they were always numerous, and nested in all our outbuildings, bringing off two broods of young in the course of the summer.
When the May Fly was "up" on the Cleddy below our house it was a grand time for the Hirundines. In company with numerous Sparrows and Chaffinches they gathered to the feast, and most eagerly pursued the chase of the dancing ephemera. The tiny Sand Martins appeared to have no difficulty in bolting them, and we could hear the snap of their mandibles as one disappeared inside. One day a Swift in headlong pursuit collided against our head and fluttered stunned to the ground, but soon recovered and rose again on wing.
The greater number of our Swallows left us in North Pembrokeshire about the middle of September ; some had gone before in August, and very few remained in the early days of October.