When Will They Arrive?

By Kurt Servé

When will they come?

Sun has struggled over the horizon. The first heat greets me here this morning in early September. There is a slight haze over the landscape. I can just see Keld's Cove lighthouse Drude east. A flock of geese coming behind me out of the water. They fly in a wide range of low altitude over the water. A flock of barnacle geese fly over the west. On the way to where?

The first birds come in waves from the forest below and disappear over my head. I sit here at the top of the cliff with good views far to the north of Langeland.
And then finally a few swallows. Country Barn Swallows. They hesitate a little but then they continue. Most are drawn south. Perhaps these here from northern Norway. They have already been a while along the way, migrating.

Soon all the swallows gone. Fall turns into winter. There is now a long time before we can say: "Then the swallows are arriving, now spring is coming, "But let us turn things upside down. Not so literally, but a little. Somewhere else are they waiting for the Barn Swallows. They are waiting for their spring to come. That they can say "Now the Barn Swallows are here."

Ornithological Society of South Africa asking for years people to report when they see the first barn swallow. Country Valentine has been voted the year's bird. It happens in a program called: Help us disc skip. I can then just tell them that now most of "our" Barn Swallows will be gone. I have actually done so. I have written to South Africa that they are heading their way. In return, the society down there promised to write to me when the first swallows are seen. That such a sighting be around late October and into November.

Barn Swallow in winter quarters in South Africa "Our swallows' must pay back about 10.000 km! Ringing has shown that some of our swallows end up in South Africa. You know which routes the Barn Swallows follow to the south. One goes down over Spain to cross the Mediterranean at Gibraltar. One goes over the Alps (where several million in 1974 was stopped by an early winter and died) and down through Italy and across the Mediterranean to North Africa. There has been records of ringed swallows showing that "our" swallows can use both routes. But the same swallow flies probably the same way each year it lives.

So far so good. They have now completed approx. 2500 km. in a straight line. Ahead of him is the harsh conditions of the Sahara. You may cross it without too much hesitation. One of those sudden sandstorms will become death for many of them. Others die of thirst or lack of nourishment. People down there in the desert cities look to the sky. They think enough like us.

When the Sahara is crossed, there are still 4 to 5 thousand km. ahead. A swallow ringed in Nigeria has been genmeldt in Jutland. So some words come this way. Equator crossing. Below is savannah with elephants and giraffes began to be replaced by rainforest. I wonder if the gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo notice the Barn Swallows up there when they fly over. Or what about the residents of Katanga? I wonder if they say: We are heading towards spring. As the data below show ringing records,the Danish Barn Swallows follow this path.

Barn Swallow: The label on 25.09.1998 at Husby Lake, Ulfborg, Jutland by ringing 420 Niels Ulrich
Pedersen. Genmeldt d. 26.09.2001 at Kasaar, Katanga, Democratic Republic of Congo.

So there is now "only" passing Angola to reach Namibia and South Africa.

Barn Swallow ringed in Bloemfontein, South Africa 01.03.2003 as 2K + He. Recaptures by Willy Mardal by Kobberø, Vestervig, Thy 26.06.2005.
 
The long journey is over. Millions of swallows have been on the road from the north. It is estimated that "Oversummer" about 100,000,000 Barn Swallows live in South Africa.!

In large flocks for the night. Thousands and thousands - hundreds of thousands. It is not enough. Together with other Barn Swallow migrants they reach up to 3,000,000 in number. Barn Swallows sleeping there at Mount Moreland, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.