Thursday 6 February 2014

Swallow vismig corridors through Carnforth

Sketch showing the main Swallow routes on Exit from parts of Cumbria and North Lancashire.
This is a sketch I did on the 30th September 2013, and it shows the main exit routes the Swallows take through North Lancashire and Cumbria on their return migration.  I have had the pleasure to study them using these routes and there is never any deviation, or should I say there does not seem to have been over the past four years. The first arrival of the Swallows on their incoming entry is anytime from about the last week in March, but more usually from about the 7th April with the bulk coming in about the 20th April and most will be on territory by the end of April.  The main outward exit of the Swallows is usually anytime from about the 20th September (as a rule in most years high counts on the 22nd September)  for about seven to ten days and then the numbers start to drop off drastically. I have experienced counts from over at Hunting Hill at the back of Carnforth Railway Station were they come through in the hundreds.  You can actually see them from the Railway Bridge on the Warton Road, just outside the Railway Station.  Its a broadish front going SSE and lots will come over the main town of Carnforth to a route I suspect may lead them into the Trough of Bowland areas and South.   Most of my counts these days are taken from the Dalton area of Burton In Kendal.