Swallow #4 - Topside view for once!
At a guess there were something like two dozen of these swallows and house martins in the immediate locality, feeding at two layers. Some were skimming the tops of the unripe barley shown above, the others were much higher, those latter were the martins as far as I could tell. Those looked to be around mature deciduous tree top height, in the wind shadow of the tree line; presumably picking up flying insects from the trees whereas the swallows were mostly concentrating on flies or flying beetles rising from the barley field. But there were crossovers between the two groups. Or so it looked to me, but I'm no practised observer of these birds.
Swallow #4 - Topside view for once!
At a guess there were something like two dozen of these swallows and house martins in the immediate locality, feeding at two layers. Some were skimming the tops of the unripe barley shown above, the others were much higher, those latter were the martins as far as I could tell. Those looked to be around mature deciduous tree top height, in the wind shadow of the tree line; presumably picking up flying insects from the trees whereas the swallows were mostly concentrating on flies or flying beetles rising from the barley field. But there were crossovers between the two groups. Or so it looked to me, but I'm no practised observer of these birds.