When we moved here in May 1993 we soon dicovered that a colony of swallows nested in the garage every year, this pleased us immensely as we had always envied people who were fortunate to have these wonderful birds nesting like this either in the house or nearby.

Access to the roof area of the garage was provided by a hole in the timber cladding provided by the previous owners of Fernhill, and soon after moving in we knew that they were sitting on eggs in just one nest.
Over the years the swallows have also colonised the old timber building we call 'The barn', which is really a very large shed, and there are usualy at least four nests there every year, plus at least three in the garage, I fitted a tarpaulin under the garage roof timbers to protect our car and the mowers etc, so now we are unable to see up into the roof area, but we know they are there by the twittering that goes on.
Collectively in an average season anything from 40 to 50 swallows return to Africa from us, but we have no way of knowing how many make it there and back here the following season, however some return and they have never failed yet.