Back in May, I became aware that the swallows we had seen flying around, doing their finest acrobatics above us and filling the air with their high-pitched liquid tunes, had begun to build a nest in the workshop. How exciting! In the eight years we have lived here, no swallows have nested in our outbuildings before, apart from a couple of unsuccessful attempts in the field shelter out in the meadow a few years ago.

Each year, their arrival from Africa ushers in the long, heady days of summer and I love seeing them fly high and low above the …