\u201cTo suggest that our winters would be warm enough for swallows to survive would have been unthinkable a few decades ago,\u201d said BTO director of science James Pearce-Higgins in a statement. \u201cBut the evidence that our climate is changing is building year by year.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/23\/2022\/04\/Swallow_by_Allan_Drewitt-7b6c061.jpg?quality=90&resize=484%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>According to the BTO\u2019s Paul Stancliffe, the first record of swallows surviving a British winter \u2013 a single bird in Cornwall and a small group in South Wales \u2013 was in 2009. \u201cBefore that, there has been the odd record of birds hanging around in December, but not seen again,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Since 2009, there have been a few more sporadic records, but too few to prove a correlation with milder winters, says Stancliffe.<\/p>\n Barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) on a power line. \u00a9 Getty<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> Last year\u2019s late arrival of spring might also have pushed some bird into staying put. \u201cWe know there were swallows still nesting in late September,\u201d says Stancliffe.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t actually know where these birds spent the summer,\u201d says Stancliffe. \u201cThey may have bred here, or they may be from further north in the Arctic Circle and stopped off on their way south.\u201d<\/p>\n Header image: swallow\u00a0\u00a9 Amy Lewis<\/em><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Stuart Blackman Published: Tuesday, 05 April 2022 at 12:00 am The return of swallows to our islands from their African wintering grounds is a sure sign that spring has well and truly sprung. And yet it seems that some never even left. This winter has seen an unprecedented spike in swallow sightings submitted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":15307,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/04\/swallows-overwintering-in-britain-rather-than-migrating-back-to-africa-scaled.jpg",2560,1713,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/04\/swallows-overwintering-in-britain-rather-than-migrating-back-to-africa-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/04\/swallows-overwintering-in-britain-rather-than-migrating-back-to-africa-300x201.jpg",300,201,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/04\/swallows-overwintering-in-britain-rather-than-migrating-back-to-africa-768x514.jpg",768,514,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/04\/swallows-overwintering-in-britain-rather-than-migrating-back-to-africa-1024x685.jpg",800,535,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/04\/swallows-overwintering-in-britain-rather-than-migrating-back-to-africa-1536x1028.jpg",1536,1028,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/04\/swallows-overwintering-in-britain-rather-than-migrating-back-to-africa-2048x1370.jpg",2048,1370,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Stuart Blackman Published: Tuesday, 05 April 2022 at 12:00 am The return of swallows to our islands from their African wintering grounds is a sure sign that spring has well and truly sprung. And yet it seems that some never even left. This winter has seen an unprecedented spike in swallow sightings submitted to…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/15306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}You may also like:\u00a0<\/h4>\n
![\""A\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/23\/2013\/09\/Swallow-resting-GettyImages-145167347-f38b05e-scaled.jpg?quality=45&resize=556,556"\" "\\"\"Germany,\\"")
<\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section>![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/23\/2022\/04\/Wintering_Swallow_reports_BirdTrack_January_2022-81e52fb.png?quality=90&resize=574%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"