Bob Ward
The Swallows
Widely welcomed as summer visitors, European swallows fly off to Africa during our winters, only to return the next year. An ornithologist friend once told me that one spring in Algeria he had seen swallows collapsed in heaps upon the ground near an oasis. They were exhausted at the end of their demanding flight across the Sahara desert. Before long they recovered enough to resume their journey north.
Bob Ward, Swallows on a Wire, photograph, 2023
I used to live in a house high up on the side of a valley. Each April swallows would arrive to occupy a ledge inside our garage, left open on purpose to receive them. We never put the car away lest next door’s cat stationed itself on the top to harass the birds. We regarded the swallows as our special guests for over a decade, until one year they failed to settle and we never saw them there again. How we missed them!
Bob Ward, Which Way is South?, photograph, 2023
In the same town, a road squeezed under a Victorian railway bridge. Swallows chose to nest regularly on the girders upholding the railway, despite the passing traffic. Sadly, they are no longer seen at the site. AQ